A Shorty Short Crack Short with some fluff and mild horror, Corvus Draconis Style

Betas: The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard

Intimacy

A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate.

Emma Orczy

It started with a single touch, he realised.

Just that one touch.

A witch who literally fell down from the sky while he was upside-down, cursing and wandless as the Marauders humiliated him, torturing him with soap bubbles and showing off his disreputable pants to Merlin and everyone.

Just as Potter and Black sent some sort of nasty hex in his direction, it hit the witch straight to the chest— she was soaked to the skin, dripping wet with some sort of undoubtedly potion-derived slime—and she screamed a terrible shriek just as ominous as banshee's wail.

Hair like that of a great curly-maned lion stood on end with the crackle of magic, even as—

"Snivellus! Greasy!"

"Snivellus!"

"Why don't we show everyone your pants, Snivellus?" Potter hissed.

"Greasy git!" Black added, snickering maliciously.

They didn't even seem to notice that they had hit someone other than him. Did they really think he would sound like that?

The witch stood taller, now. Her slender body crackling with the kind of absolute fury he knew all too well, only she made no attempt whatsoever to control or hide it.

Radiant, wrathful fury—

A goddess of retribution with a halo of curls. Even upside down, he felt he wanted, needed to worship her— that power, that rage.

Unfolding from her back rose up what appeared to be either a number of eels or serpents— tentacles most definitely— as black as pitch and sleek as a brassed-off hagfish.

Every spell that hit her instead of him seemed to make them larger and more irritated— mouths open and full of fangs as slime dripped and small hisses expressed their extreme displeasure.

The witch straightened her back and snarled, "You. Leave. Him. Alone."

Her voice was but a growl— low like the whisper of a wrathful demon.

"Snivellus has a girl protecting him!"

"A girl!"

"He can't even protect himself!"

"Haha!"

The witch's hand jerked suddenly, and Snape fell, stopping but inches from the ground as her nonverbal spell cushioned his fall. Her hand was out to him, her back to him, fully expecting him to take it.

"Do you really think he needs anyone to protect him in a fair fight?" the witch asked, her voice a lethal mixture of threat and venom. "Him with no wand and you— with both his wand and your own. A mob. Against one solitary wizard? I don't even know him, but I know a gang of sycophantic juvenile delinquents when I see one. Troublemakers. Rule-breakers. Bullies. A pack of arrogant toerags not fit to be called wizards."

She clenched her fist as her hair flared, and her secondary mane of tentacles hissed viciously. Suddenly, there was a wand clutched in each tentacle's mouth as the witch flicked her hand, swiftly traced runes in the air, flared out her fingers, clenched them into a fist, and then opened her hand in an elegant, sweeping motion.

Energy chains whipped around each of the bullies, wrapping around their trembling bodies like a cocoon, even as the lot of them were simultaneously de-trousered, leaving only their soiled pants and the stench of urine in their wake.

"You make me sick," the witch declared, her mane writhing angrily like the serpents of Medusa. "I am so done with people like you. Believing that you have no faults. Acting like the rules don't apply to you. Breathing like you need not share the air with the rest of the lowly masses."

She pulled out a small, cracked bottle from her robes, even as a set of alien, curved claws emerged from her fingertips and tapped it significantly.

"People that make things like this— just waiting for some innocent party to come along and trigger it."

The captured Marauders looked wide-eyed at the dark green bottle with the effigy of a tentacled head emblazoned on the front.

"You said it wasn't ready yet!" hissed Pettigrew as his eyes bulged in shock.

"It wasn't!" Black shot back, his voice but a harsh whisper. "I hid it in my father's old bookshelf to mature!"

The witch's eyes were glowing now… shifting from an eerie pale green to a sulfurous yellow glow. "Uoy lliw eb devres. Ym Drol sdnammoc ti."

She turned, and Severus saw the unmistakable ire in her regard, all forgiveness purged in fire and malice. "Nioj em dna evil. Ro ton. Ti si ruoy eciohc ot ekam. Rouy etaf si sruoy enola."

Snape knelt and pressed his forehead to her feet. "My Lady, I bow to your power. Your will. Pray, tell me your name that I might hold it close."

The witch placed a hand on his head, her seemingly delicate, dangerous fingers weaving into his slick hair.

"Yas ruoy eman dna esir. Uoy lliw reven deen wob ot em. Evres ro wollof yb eciohc. Reven yb sserud. Reven yb—" She gave a slow blink as blackness covered her eyes entirely. "Noitadimitni."

"Severus," he said, standing tall with confidence previously hidden as his mind understood what the words meant even when they seemed utterly strange and alien. "I serve willingly."

"Od ton evres," the witch said, her eyes regaining a touch of humanity as the blackness faded. "Dnats sa ym lauqe. Ym edarmoc. Ym dneirf."

Her eyes grew dark again— dark as the fathomless deep."Rof I evah devil ni ym s'retsam esuoh ta R'lyeh erehw Eh smaerd."

"I am called Hermione," she said in English. "Would you still stand beside me, with my blood impure, my heritage in question? Would you choose to accept the Mark of an Elder God? This must be your choice, freely made. Your will."

Severus swallowed hard.

Several figures were running towards them now— teachers, staff. Patroni were zinging off in all directions, quickly disappearing out of sight.

The sky was dark as midnight as the moon had sneakily placed itself before the afternoon sun, casting itself in front to create a golden, eerie ring of fire.

Crack!

The headmaster arrived on the scene, wand already drawn.

Time seemed to abruptly screech to a halt.

Severus blinked, realising that the bushy-haired witch was gone. The wands of his opponents were impaling a piece of folded parchment, pinning it to a tree. A bright pink arrow blinked as it pointed to it like a marquee light.

The Marauders were still chained as a whorl holograms featuring their personal memories floated in the air, all of them detailing every person that had gone into the attack on Severus Snape— the facts of the matter made plain for all to see.

Perhaps, even more horrifying to the gang of friends, every time they thought of Snape, it triggered more of their memories of past deeds to flood into the free-floating memory pool, including a certain incident involving Lupin's furry monthly problem and a blatant act of attempted murder that had been dismissed as a mere boyish prank gone wrong.

The crowd of hecklers ceased their chanting as whispers of the ugly truth began to spread like wildfire.

None, however, was a damning as one Peter Pettigrew swearing his fealty to the Dark Lord Voldemort in a seedy tavern over a fine meal of roast pheasant and an even finer vintage wine. The Dark Mark had filled his arm by the memory's end.

The looks of abject horror were, Severus admitted to himself, quite cathartic, indeed.

As Dumbledore stared out at the chained wizards and the damning memories loaded with evidence, the moon moved out from in front of the sun and allowed daylight to return once more.

While the looks of horror, despair, and knicker-soiling terror practically wept off of James, Sirius, and Peter, Lupin could only whimper like a newborn puppy as he whispered, "Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!"

Whatever feelings Dumbledore may have had, they seemed to focus on profound disappointment under a cover of concern— the tale of extremely odd weather and the phantom of an irate witch having spread throughout Hogwarts like wildfire.

"I truly thought better of you," he said gravely, silencing the masses with one gesture of his wand. "I see now that I have been sadly lax in a great many things, including trusting that our last unpleasant incident would be the end of this nonsense. I see that I was sadly wrong to think so."

"Each and every person who chose to engage in the torment and ridicule of Mr Snape will be serving detention for ten days with Mr Filch, without the use of magic," Dumbledore said sternly. "This does include verbal heckling. For those who fail to report to Mr Filch, you will lose fifty house points for each and every infraction and will serve an additional ten days of detention. As it is, all those involved will lose fifty house points each for participating in such despicable behaviour here at Hogwarts. If there are any further incidents, verbal or otherwise, all those involved will be held back from taking their exams and or N.E.W.T.s, and I will be sending owls to both the parents and the Ministry Department of Education with a record of your behaviour."

"As for you four," Dumbledore said as he cast the tracing magic over the wands even as the parchment in his hands started to spout off random insults in ink, "I will be confirming every spell cast from these wands for the past month. If I find anything at all amiss, I will go back another, and another until I am fully satisfied."

"But we haven't even done anything yet!" Pettigrew whinged a bit too loudly as Sirius rammed his elbow into his chest, hard.

"Ow! What was that for?" Peter moaned.

Lily rushed up to Snape. "You all right, Sev?"

Severus, his black eyes somber, redressed himself properly, hiding his renewed mortification behind a still mask of dispassion.

"Minerva, would you please escort Mr Snape and Miss Evans to the infirmary?"

"Of course, Headmaster."

"And have Poppy provide me with a list of any incidents that resulted in Mr Snape being admitted to the infirmary going all the way back to first year."

"Yes, Headmaster," Minerva said, shuffling the pair in front of her and back to Hogwarts.

As the admonished students were herded off to the headmaster's office, the students who had been so eager to heckle from the sidelines exchanged guilty looks and whispers.

The Headmaster, grim in both stance and expression, rubbed his beard as he pondered how he'd ended up there at that very moment when he been enjoying a wonderful fresh cherry tart but an instant before.

Lily wasn't happy about something, but Severus wasn't quite sure what it was that was truly bothering her. The best he could describe it was moping, and even that didn't seem quite right.

Gryffindor was practically on fire with the unwelcome revelation that they were no longer safe from the "blind eye of Dumbledore". Yet—

Others that had been the victims of the Merry Band of Scofflaws were starting to breath easier. Mind you, none of them had been as relentlessly stalked as he had been, but he hadn't been the only one on their prank list.

Talk of the strange eclipse, however, was the mainstay of Hogwarts. Those so eager to join in the ridicule of one Severus Snape could barely look him in the eye in the hallways. Whispers that once filled the air behind his back cut off sharply as said gossipers thought twice about going against Dumbledore's decree against bullying.

Slytherin, however, spoke in awe of an alien and terrible Dark Lady that had wiped the floor with four Gryffindors without the use of a wand— and there were whispers that the Dark Lord may not be the one to follow after all.

Aurors walked the grounds, now, after they had found the parchment pinned to the tree by wands ultimately interesting: a tracking map that detailed every soul in Hogwarts. They also searched for any trace of what had been called a "mass hallucination" of the phantom, alien, Dark Lady.

Hermione, Severus remembered.

Her name was Hermione.

He remembered her name, the warmth in her touch.

She had been real, no phantom. She had been wrathful, powerful.

Magnificent.

In less than a few minutes, she had neutralised the plague upon Snape's life, something even the Headmaster had refused to do even after Snape had almost been mauled to death by a werewolf.

But somewhere deep under that wrath had been something vulnerable and human. She'd been betrayed and was done with it.

He knew that as surely as he had understood her speech— words that twisted backwards upon themselves, twisting the mind with swirling meaning lost in obscurity yet right in front for all to see. Her hand had been warm, real.

"Sev! Are you even listening to what I've been saying?"

Severus jerked up his head. "Hn?"

Lily sighed heavily.

"Headmaster Dumbledore told the Aurors that they had tampered with some ancient magic. Old gods magic. Forbidden."

Lily shivered.

Severus frowned, suddenly remembering the cracked bottle with the tentacle-faced head on it. Where had he seen such things bef—

Books, he realised.

If that effigy had been an old god, then—

Either it had been a creature of fantasy made real, or at least one of those old gods was far more real than fiction.

Severus frowned again. It was quite common for children to make up rituals to go with what they thought was real or perhaps what they believed was real, but if Potter, Black, Pettigrew, and Lupin had attempted to craft a new "prank" using an old god as inspiration—

N.E.W.T.s were but a month away, but classes would continue until the Leaving Feast.

"Join me and live. Or not. It is your choice to make. Your fate is your own."

Her words, clear as day to him despite how they had sounded. It hadn't sounded like a death threat, no. It was just a simple choice.

Her power was unmistakable, yet—

"Do not serve," she had said. "Stand as my equal. My comrade. My friend."

An equal.

Free will.

The very thought was intoxicating.

It was that one touch, however, that truly moved him.

Willing touch.

Warmth amidst the wrath.

For him.

Even now, Lily hugged herself tightly, taking no comfort from him in any way. She had never once woven her fingers through his hair, even in a casual, friendly ruffle. She had never touched him unless it was absolutely necessary.

They were probably the most unfriendly friends he knew of.

Even Crabbe and Goyle gave each other companionable pats on the back after succeeding in their nefarious little plots.

Lily always hugged her Gryffindor friends, laughing and playing around, but he—

He was just always there, oh so willing to do whatever she wanted of him, because she'd been the first to give him the time of day. Oh, and he had done her bidding every time, hoping beyond hope that in the end she would choose him over the gaggles of fangirls and boys who admired and envied her beauty and popularity.

She did call Potter and his mates toerags, he admitted, but she never believed they deserved actual punishment.

Boys will be boys. You have to be better, Severus. You're better than them, Severus.

He could never fight back without earning her disgust. He could never even talk to his housemates without getting her vociferous disapproval.

He had to live with them. How could one not at least get along in Slytherin? Not in her perfect world.

Sure, he admitted. He had tried to find ways to get them in trouble. To get back at them, but it had never really worked. For every win he had, four times the pain came his way shortly after in the form of Potter, Black, Pettigrew, and Lupin.

Lupin always seemed like someone who followed the others because he had no choice— and finding out he was a werewolf only proved that. If he didn't, he'd have no friends at all, and where would that leave him? Still, Severus didn't consider him totally blameless in all things. He was a prankster too, and he stood by and said nothing as they tormented so many loners in Hogwarts— always finding them when they were alone.

Oh, but the looks of anger when the students found out how they had been singled out—

The Marauder's Map, emblazoned so arrogantly upon the surface of the parchment. It was a brilliant piece of tracking magic, Severus had to admit, and even more so the magic they'd used to conceal its true nature—

But Dumbledore was Dumbledore, and he was inspired to crack the code.

A scruffy-looking old Auror named Alastor Moody had finally helped him to unravel it, thanks to an unnervingly jerky magical eye placed over his eye socket.

The list of crimes kept growing and growing, and Dumbledore seemed to be quite humbled by just how much he had truly turned a blind eye to, thinking they were all just boyish pranks or else isolated incidents with different circumstances.

Madam Pomfrey had heartily disagreed. Her list of all the times Severus had been in the infirmary was long enough to surround a Quidditch pitch, and that was before she added in the other student "prank" victims.

And with the Aurors there when her report was made, there was no wriggling out of it.

Broken and missing bones.

Slicing hexes.

Burning potions.

Mysterious tumbles down the stairs.

Fake contraceptive potions—

Why, Severus asked himself, was that even a thing? In a time when being pregnant out of wedlock was akin to both financial and social ruin?

All for what? A good shag when they were too embarrassed to go to Madam Pomfrey for the real thing?

Disgusting.

The list of witches whose families had paid even more galleons to ensure the resultant pregnancy was aborted before anyone found out was sealed away, but Severus knew most of those names were tied to Black. Black's reputation with his broom was far too easily traced. The tears and drama even more so.

Lily acted like she hadn't realised any of it. Her horror at the shocking revelations was clearly genuine. Even more so, she was being forced to look at the reality of her own house's impurity despite its reputation.

It wasn't, Severus noted, that Slytherin was any better— or any house. But no house was perfect. Any individual could either excel or fail, make great choices or monumentally stupid ones.

Karma, however, had finally come to collect, borne of their very own potion experiment calling upon the ire of a most ancient, supposedly fictional, god.

Not so fictional after all, he noted.

"For I have lived in my master's house at R'lyeh where he dreams."

He remembered what she had said.

There was only one old god as notorious as that, and it was Cthulhu—the elder god of ultimate freedom, but whose very powers were far too much for most if not all mortals to bear. "Mankind would become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil," Lovecraft had written, but he also added, " with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy… a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom."

Therein lay the rub.

Mortals couldn't handle total freedom.

"Join me and live. Or not. Your fate is your own."

People could barely make up their mind on what they wanted for dinner, or what to wear on a date. Those with power often hoarded it, sharing it with no one, demanding to be on top as lord and master.

Already, those that had been so eager to join the Dark Lord's service were now whispering to prostrate themselves before this new, wrathful Dark Lady— a being that they had not even seen in person, most of them anyway. Many were asking him what he had seen.

What was she like?

Was she truly so powerful?

Severus snorted. How quickly they turn-coated.

He'd wanted to take the Dark Lord's offer, himself, if but for the sponsorship into his potions mastery, which he couldn't afford otherwise. Now, however—

His heart seemed to have shaken free of his desire to show up his father and be a great wizard to spite him. He no longer wanted to impress Lily and turn her heart toward him. That, he realised, would never happen.

He realised too that he did not want it to, not anymore.

He wanted to stand on his own two feet, beholden to no one, but—

Desired.

As a friend, a comrade— perhaps something more.

It was that one touch.

The intimacy.

The promise.

Gods…

If Lily had given him that but once, he wouldn't even consider what his heart was now demanding of him.

Even if it was just the possibility, the foot in the door to perhaps be as important to someone as they were to him—

Severus turned and looked out the window to the dark night sky. "I accept," he whispered.

"You still have time to decide," the bushy-haired witch said, leaning over on a stone wall to look out over what appeared to be Hogwarts.

Severus realised he'd never been there, this specific place, nor did he ever know it existed.

The sky was purple; the sun was an eclipse, and the moon was cast in red— all things that shouldn't be possible at the same time. The clouds were peppered with the shadows of great dragons. The ground seemed somehow alive, writhing.

Hermione's back of tentacles whispered to each other, each seemingly in a different language. They seemed quite mellow when compared to when he had first seen them. One had a paintbrush and was painting a study of an object that another was holding between its jaws. Another seemed to be writing out complex Arithmantic equations. Yet another was doing its best to braid Hermione's wild mane of curls. One seemed to be staring at back at him quite curiously.

"You may touch them, if you wish," she said, answering his unspoken question.

Severus reached out, and one tentacle bumped into his hand rather like a cat seeking attention. It was soft and smooth, even velvety, like a horse's nose. One tentacle bit the other, clearly jealous, and they tussled, getting tangled up.

Hermione's eyes glowed sulfurous, and the tentacles in question drooped apologetically, both bumping into Severus' hand together.

"My apologies," she said. "I fear they are quite needy."

Severus snorted laughter. "I'm sorry, I— it's a lot to take in."

Hermione tilted her head. "I suppose it is. I have had centuries upon centuries to come to terms with it all in the dreams of my master."

"What happened to you?" Severus finally asked.

"There was a terrible war," she sighed. "Much like yours, only older and far more insidious. I had a friend who was named in a prophecy, and I and his best mate wanted to help him end the war. At one point, we took refuge in an old house that had been left to him by his godfather."

"I was brewing dittany and other potions for when we had to leave on a quest of sorts. Ronald found some sort of bottle that had been left in the library I was brewing in. Harry and he got in a fight over it— Harry told him to put it back where he found it. Ronald insisted that it could help us if we could only figure out what it was—"

"The seal broke when Harry tried to grab it from him. It spilled all over me and into the potion I was brewing," Hermione explained. "I… died."

Severus looked somewhat dubious.

"But my master had already claimed me," Hermione explained. "And now I, like He, cannot truly die. He sleeps in his stone house in R'yleh. Here. Well, this is the closest personal representation of it."

"Hogwarts?"

"I lived out most of my human life there— it was only natural that it would form in my mind like this."

"What does your master want?"

"He wants nothing and everything. He does as He pleases. Some things benefit the world, others do not. He is both chaos and order, if only on His own terms. He gives mortals power to see if they are ready, and often they prove they are not— they usually end up murdering each other."

"And you? Were you ready?" Severus asked.

Hermione smiled. "No, but I evolved."

For a moment, she was not human at all, but a shapeless mass of writhing dark tentacles screaming in the eternal darkness of space, and then she looked quite human once again.

"He took me into His embrace and let me dream with Him," Hermione said. "I have seen many possibilities, paths to power, power lost, witnessed civilizations rise and fall— buried in the mighty wrath of volcanoes, sunk to the bottom of the ancient seas. Justice and injustice. Law and chaos. Wars for so many reasons. All start for the most interesting of reasons— some even justified. All end precisely the same."

"When I was ready to explore the world again, my master sent me to a specific point in time to see what would happen. He gave me no orders. He gave me no rules, but I realised he had sent me to the very ones that crafted a potion pulling on my master's domain— to come and collect the Price."

"The Price?"

Snape's mind was whirling in an attempt to piece it all together, but each side of his brain was holding up a two while the channels between the dueling hemispheres held up "pi."

"Oh—" she said, her eyes bright even in the darkness. "It was such a glorious prank, to send one's target into an Old God's embrace— I'm sure it was intended for you."

Hermione's eyes were black starfields, switching to gold, switching to an unnerving hot pink, to an eerie, smoldering red. "Maybe they didn't believe. I'm sure no one in that group truly believed that a mere Muggle could come up with something real."

"For me?"

"I did not realise it until you told me your name," Hermione said. "Who you were. Who they were. When I did, it all came together in rage. Suddenly, I knew exactly what they had intended for their favourite target. In that moment I did not care that if I meted out justice, it could mean my friend would never be born. I had seen into the hearts of those boys who would be wizards. I saw their cowardice cloaked in bravery, their jealousy cloaked in spite, their hatred cloaked in arrogance."

"You are from the future?"

"No."

Severus blinked.

"I do not exist— anymore." Hermione stared over the dark silhouette of Hogwarts. "What I was was consumed by the bile of an Elder God. I was remade from His dreams— free of humanity. Free of mortality."

"Yet you are bound to Him?"

"He is my master," she said, tilting her head. "My father, my mother, my self. How can I not be bound when this is true?"

Hermione stroked one of her tentacles. "You need not swear yourself to me, Severus. The choices you make are yours. Do not feel obligated because of my moment of righteous retribution."

She looked sadly back at him. "I would rather have a friend, a comrade—"

Severus felt a powerful tug inside him— longing, need. Surely it could not be so easy, so fast.

Surely one such as her would not find him desirable.

Not him.

But his heart pushed him forward, and he touched her cheek with his pale fingers.

Her skin was so soft, warm. Her eyes were like cognac and absinthe swirling together. He knew the feeling of longing, for it had been a constant companion. The need for understanding, intimacy.

Not just a physical thing, no. He wanted a true intimacy of mind and body combined.

She pressed her head against his chest, tucking herself under his chin. His arms were around her, pulling her tight against himself. Her tentacles, startled, made themselves useful by pulling him closer to her, and he found the feeling exhilarating to be pulled tight against another rather than pushed away. The tentacles should have scared him, but they were her, and she was intoxicating in both her honesty and power.

At the same time, he knew he was embracing something so alien— but he wanted, needed it so terribly that his body ached.

His mouth sought hers, and the connection was immediate, intense, and breathless, even as his mind screamed that it was not possible, not possible, not possible!

With every gasp she made, he kissed her anew, capturing her mouth and breath as pieces of her once life played out for him in his head even as his rose to meet hers.

With each kiss he was damned.

With each breath he was saved.

Dark Lord Voldemort be damned.

Long live the Dark Lady Hermione, the chosen of Cthulhu.

He worshipped her body with every touch, every breath, every moan.

"My Lady," he groaned hoarsely. His robes were gone and he didn't give a damn. "I am yours."

Her gold and green eyes flickered as blackness swallowed them. "Promise?" she whispered, so terribly vulnerable despite her immense power.

"Always," he swore as they joined together in a mutual scream, their bodies a tangle of heat, passion, and magic.

The sky blackened even more, fading the world around them with encroaching pitch as the dark, dark chuckle of an Elder God whispered, "Doog. Doog. I tpecca ruoy htao. Yam uoy etalupop ym dlrow htiw ruoy nwaps."

Tiny shimmering spiders, like stars, fell from the sky as they pulled a curtain of velvety night down upon the pair, leaving them to know each other without eyes in which to see.

"Sev!" Lily said, thumping Severus on the head with her book.

Severus startled, shaken.

"How do you think you did?"

Severus blinked. "Tahw?"

Lily scowled. "How do you think you did on your N.E.W.T.s?"

Severus cricked his neck. "Fine, I guess."

Lily huffed, turning to look out over the lake, missing the swirl of colour mix in Snape's normally black eyes.

"You've been daydreaming a lot, Sev," Lily said. "You sure you studied well enough for your N.E.W.T.s?"

"I wouldn't mess up my N.E.W.T.s," Severus said. "I promised—"

"Promised who?"

Severus leveled his gaze, black eyes narrowing. "I promised I would finish my education."

Lily shook her head. "Whatever lets you graduate, Sev," she said, sighing. "I suppose you have some grand plans for after graduation."

Severus' lips curved upward. "Yes. Don't you?"

"I'm going to open a clothing boutique in Diagon Alley with Marlene," Lily gushed. "Wizarding and Muggle fashion so people have clothes that don't scream "out of place" when they go out in public."

Snape sniffed. "I suppose that will work."

"What are you going to do, Sev?"

Severus was silent.

"Sev!" Lily poked him.

He turned to her, black eyes locked on hers. "I was thinking of settling down a few parsecs from Alpha Centauri. There is this really beautiful rainforest planet with toxic purple skies where I plan to ravish Cthulhu's daughter every single night and populate the world with our genetic spawn so they can spread out across the universe and take over planets in the Master's name."

Lily raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "You really need to get out more, Sev. There is a war looming, you know? Better if people keep it low key."

"What's more low key than south of Alpha Centauri?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Really, Sev. If you don't have a real plan for after graduation, you could just say so."

Severus' lips curved upward. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, Lily. I do have plans for after graduation. Don't you worry about me."

"I wonder if they are really going to send James and his friends to Azkaban for brewing a fictional potion," Lily mused.

"It's not fictional if it is functional."

"It made everyone hallucinate, not die," Lily insisted.

"If you say so," Severus said, giving her a slow blink.

"They say Remus is still babbling nonsense at Mungo's."

"Sounds normal."

"Sev!"

"What?"

"That's not nice."

"I have never been— nice."

Lily huffed. "You could at least try to be. People would like you more."

"Doubtful."

"Don't you even care what others think of you?"

Severus sniffed. "Not anymore."

Lily shook her head. "I just don't understand you, sometimes, Sev."

He gave her a steely stare, and she turned away to look the other direction. "I can't wait until we graduate."

Snape's mouth curved upward as his eyes went completely black. "Nor can I." A gathering of tentacles pushed up from under his robes and hissed eagerly.

Lily turned to look at him, her eyes going wide, then bugging straight out of her head as she ran screaming back to Hogwarts spouting gibberish at the top of her lungs.

Severus stroked a few of the tentacles fondly, and they hissed in pleasure and approval.

"Soon," he promised them. "We will meet with Our Lady and Master again."

The tentacles hissed happily and slithered back under his robes as Snape's eyes went back to their normal, human black.

That summer, Alastor Moody found himself gifted with a flawless to scale model of Malfoy Manor filled entirely with Nifflers, each of them dressed in wizarding robes, with wands clutched in their tiny paws.

The Nifflers would point the wands at each other, and they would erupt in streams of glittery rainbow confetti.

Savage nudged Alastor. "What the hell is this, boss?"

Moody shook his head. "I have no idea—"

"Hey boss!" Proudfoot said, carrying in a box. "This came in the mail for you. The poor owls must be all tuckered out."

After several dozen scanning spells, Alastor carefully opened the box with his wand, bracing himself for impact.

A ring, leather-bound diary, goblet, diadem set with a large bright blue gem— all of it tumbled out onto Moody's desk.

"My Horcruxes!" a red-eyed Niffler screamed. "Kill them! Kill them all! Your Dark Lord commands it!"

All the Nifflers pointed their wands—

Meanwhile, out in the hall outside the DMLE—

A giant wave of confetti rolled out of the office doors.

End of the War? Confetti Included!

The end of the Wizarding War was announced today as the Dark Lord Voldemort was captured by Alastor Moody, Jonathan Savage, and Randall Proudfoot earlier this morning.

Exactly how it all unfolded still is a tightly-kept secret, but it seems that all the wanted posters have been appeased, their inherent magic fully satisfied, including that of the Dark Lord himself.

The DMLE office has also been flooded with shiny, magical confetti that has the office swarming with frantic pouch-stuffing Nifflers—

Reasons unknown.

More news as it becomes available— as soon as the DMLE office is excavated.

Far, Far Away—

Severus embraced his mate with a passionate kiss as the deep purple skies turned darker and the sun swapped places with the moon in the sky as two other moons switched places.

"Hrrrr," Hermione said. "Is that the post-graduation snog, or the mission was successful in the name of our Lord and Master snog?"

"Yesss," he hissed softly, enveloping her body with his as his tentacles and hers intertwined with happy hissing noises. "I always keep my promises."

Hermione pointed to the place she had carved out of the landscape— a glorious living estate that seemed to have grown into an organic homestead that would be the envy of green-living enthusiasts everywhere. Annoying little birds would occasionally attempt to land on the trees, and the trees would promptly sprout tentacles and swat the birds away.

"Home sweet home, my love."

Snape smiled as he pressed his mouth to hers. "It's perfect."

"Emoclew emoh," a tall-standing being greeted from the doorway— dark and light twisting and writhing his form into shapes that both inspired and horrified at the same time.

"Master!" Hermione cried, running into his embrace, burying herself in his tentacled embrace.

Cthulhu gave Severus a dark, knowing smile as he embraced his daughter. "I kool drawrof ot gniteem lla fo ruoy nerdlihc," he said.

Severus blushed as his tentacles hissed in approval, encouraging him to go forth and get busy on taking over the world—

And everything else after that.

EhT DnE?

A/N: Uhhh… I got nothing. I hope you enjoyed it. XD

Translations of the Cthulhu-speak:

"You will be served. My Lord commands it."

"Join me and live. Or not. It is your choice to make. Your fate is yours alone."

"Say your name and rise. You will never need bow to me. Serve or follow by choice. Never by duress. Never by—"

"Intimidation."

"Do not serve," "Stand as my equal. My comrade. My friend."

"For I have lived in my master's house at R'lyeh where he dreams."

"I look forward to meeting all of your children.".