Fire and Ice

By: Dreamfall

Summary: For Borgin and Burkes Challenge contest. Poem fic to Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice." Harry and Severus have come together but sometimes an ending must come. And sometimes one is not enough and the world needs must perish twice. Character death.

Challenge: S.I.M arillion's "Choose your favorite poem and write a story to it."

Warnings: Very, very vague mention of torture. Character death. Angst.

Review Response: I have a livejournal containing responses to received views, as well as update notices, and maybe other story stuff if I get around to it. The address refuses to show up on here, but it is under homepage on my front page, or you can go to livejournal and it is username dreamfall (underscore) ff If I can figure out a way to make fanfiction just show the webpage I'll add it in later.

Thanks: As always, to Rory for going over it for me and helping me decide which path to take in a couple places.

Translation: Ginlyzee has done me the honor of translating this story into French. If you're comfortable with that language, check it out at s/9628518/1/Fire-and-Ice

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
-Robert Frost

A raw howl of rage and pain rips through the air as he falls, emerald eyes dull and blank. I wonder vaguely, through the agony of that dull gaze, who could hurt enough to make that sound. Then I link it to the pulsing ache in my own throat and realize that I'm the one screaming. That explains everything.

Red eyes, feral and glowing, turn to me, and a lipless mouth twists into a sneering smile. "And you always said I couldn't make you scream, my traitor," the man-the devil-no, he wants people to think of him so and I will not give him that - the man who is now so much less than a man hisses at me. "Who would have believed that the heartless potions master would feel more for the pain of his enemy's son than for himself?"

The words are meaningless-everything is meaningless. In the tiny portion of my mind still capable of thought, it seems strange that I even hear them over my screams. Which, themselves, seem dim and far away. The only thing I can focus on is a pair of dull green eyes, empty of laughter, empty of love-empty of life.

"Some say the world will end in fire-" The scream changes, forming words so distorted by the howl they are hardly comprehensible.

He never understood why I love that poem. Was always amused and, perhaps, a bit concerned that I could be so deeply touched by something about the end of the world. I could never explain that it was about us, as surely as if Frost had been watching us as he wrote.

"-Some say in ice-"

"My dear Severusss," the hiss is barely audible, but amused. "Quoting muggle poetry in celebration of my victory?"

"-From what I've tasted of desire-"

I have no control over voice or tongue, and the words come of their own power. The last word turns again to a wordless scream of rage and pain as one of them reaches out to touch him, to defile all that is left of him- but as the hand touches his skin, it bursts into flame. The deatheater staggers back with a scream of his own, and the fire spreads from him to a tree to another deatheater - to Voldemort himself who goes up like he's covered in pitch, all before I even finished the line.

As the last word of the line fades into the burning air, the pain in my bleeding throat vanishes. I forget Riddle, forget the deatheaters, forget the battle, forget his- that he's- I forget everything. And I am once more in my room, backing away from a wild-eyed man who has no idea what he is asking, can't possibly feel as he claims.

"Severus, please-"

"No," I say. "You have clearly been overindulging in spirits, and-"

He takes four quick steps forward, and I back away, then freeze as my back hits the wall. He takes one more, so close we are practically touching. His face lifts, and I can't take my eyes off his lips as they part slightly.

My breath catches in my chest as he exhales, wafting my face with a wave of warm moist air that smells faintly of mint and overwhelmingly of him. I can't move, can't breath, can't think.

"Is there alcohol on my breath, Severus?" His voice is gentle, like he's soothing one of Hagrid's beasts, but I can't find it in me to be angry about it.

"No," I choke out the word, unable to do anything else.

"I am of sound mind and body-"

I should be able to say something, to mock the Gryffindor's sanity, to drive him away, to protect myself. I should. But all I can do is stand. And wait.

"I am an adult and stopped being your student five years ago," he continues. "I am not trying to somehow pay back the debts I owe you- though they are many- with my body. I am not trying to seduce you to prove I can, as some kind of twisted trophy. I don't want to break through your walls for a few days or weeks or months and then leave you. I don't want to change you."

"Then- what-"

He holds one finger before my lips, so close I can feel the heat radiating off it, but not quite touching.

"You are my home," he says softly. "You are my family. I want to always know that I will wake in your arms. I want you to know that you have my heart and will hold it always. I want you to know that I could never ask for a better caretaker of it. I want- I wish- I wish I could be strong enough, good enough that you would let me guard yours," he whispers. He stares into my eyes, searching, and I stare back, desperately trying to hold on to my last few walls.

Finally he breaks the hold his eyes have on mine. He inhales, the sound almost a sob, and turns, stumbling towards the door. "I am so goddamn selfish," he mutters, so softly I can hardly make out the words. "So selfish. I'm sorry. I'll leave you alone. I swear it."

I move forward without consciously deciding to do so, and set one hand on the door, foiling his attempt to open it. He turns and slumps back against it, eyes closed, tears streaming down his face, the image of defeat.

My hand drops from the door and moves towards his cheek. I don't touch him, not quite, but I can't help but bring one finger to the path of tears, touching the water as I can't touch him. I move it back after a moment, and stare wonderingly at the perfect droplet trembling on my finger. I wonder if it can heal: it is so clearly more valuable than phoenix tears.

"So beautiful," I murmur, and realize that I'm no longer looking at the tear, I'm looking at him. At the dark, wet lashes and the plane of his cheek. At the wild hair and the sweep of his neck. At the green eyes that open at my words and stare at me in uncomprehending desolation.

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

"Don't be," I say, voice cracking at the agonized realization that I had put that pain in his eyes, feeling my last fortifications crumbling with my voice.

"You don't want-"

"Yes," I interrupt. "I do."

Again his eyes stare into mine, the agony slowly giving way to hope. Then to joy that transcends the earlier despair, and something that I've never seen in the eyes of anyone looking at me before, but that I feel reflected back in my own.

He hesitantly lays his hands on my shoulders, his skin hot even through my robes. Then he leans forward and touches his lips to mine, hot as a branding iron, claiming me. And a soul, frozen for more than thirty years, thaws in a flood of liquid fire.

"-I hold with those who favor fire-" I can't tell if I say the words aloud or if they merely run through my head.

All I can see is fire and all I can feel is heat. I don't feel his hands any more- nor his lips. I look around frantically and see dull green eyes, no light within them. Not even reflections of the flames that fill the clearing dancing in them.

I can smell only burning wood, burning mud, burning cloth, burning men, and I hardly hear the screams of the deatheaters, flames leaping through the eyes of their masks until those, too, begin to smolder, as I crawl forward, disregarding the flames.

"-But if it had to perish twice-" I don't realize I'm speaking the words until they're stumbling through the smoke-thick air. I see a thin, flaming hand, reaching out for Harry and realize it's Voldemort, half-consumed by flames but fighting to destroy the last of the only thing that matters before he dies.

I stumble forward and pull him to me, away from the monster- no- just a man-

"-I think I know enough of hate-"

-less than a man- Riddle throws another curse and he screams in agony although his eyes still hold mine. We're both bound by magic, held still at the command of two dozen deatheaters- too much to cast off. And Voldemort tortures him as I watch, and I can do nothing as they hex him and beat him and rape him. And all the while his eyes are locked on mine and I can see nothing but those emerald orbs, asking nothing, just telling me that he is in pain- and that even now he loves me.

Until a flash of silver drops my gaze slightly and I see the blade open his throat and blood the color of fire covers the silver and keep falling… and my eyes return, desperately, to his, and I see, as I always do when he looks at me, the love in them. Until, at last, the inner fire fades and he falls. And the raw screams begin to tear from me….

"-To say that for destruction ice-"

I hold him close to me, trying to protect him, knowing that I am too late as I stare into the dull green eyes that don't speak to me, don't offer me anything at all. He had loaned me some of his fire and without him I can feel the chill within me returning. I can't feel the firestorm raging around us as I feel my soul begin to freeze. I try to speak to him, to wake him, but all that comes out is, "-Is also great-"

And I realize it is great as I feel my heart begin to slow, my blood turning to slush within my veins. I can't bear to live alone again and, though I turned from the ice to worship fire, it will give me this last gift. The outer edges of my vision begin to fade until all I can see is dull green eyes.

Even those vanish into darkness under a last wave of cold as I exhale one last time, lips silently forming the words I haven't the strength to say, "-And would suffice."

I feel my heart's last beat echo through me and then ... nothing. Until a spark of warmth nears me. I can almost hear his voice, though he has no voice and I have no ears to hear, as the spark flares, warming me, thawing me once more. "You followed..."

The circle of destruction was nearly half a mile wide, the great trees of that swathe of the Forbidden Forest hardly more than charred stumps, anything smaller gone altogether under the might of the firestorm. Further out, the damage had been contained, but this inner circle held nothing but ash. And, at the center of the ring, sparkling like a million diamonds in the morning light, was a figure seated with another pulled protectively into his lap, cradled in his arms. Black hair was white with frost as it fell in a curtain around the two faces. It tinkled faintly in the breeze, thousands of tiny icicles brushing together. Behind it, the man's cheeks were coated in ice and his eyes were frozen staring into those of the younger man he held.

The war was over.