Pairing: SS/AD

Rating: Hmmm, well, maybe closer to NC-17 than PG-13, but not by much.

Disclaimer: Severus Snape , Albus Dumbledore and other Potter-characters mentioned belong to J. K. Rowling.

Summary: Voldemort has won. Or has he?

Notes: Part of the Severus Snape Fuh-Q Fest: Second Wave {Pairing # 2:Dumbledore}

Archiving: The Severus Snape Fuh-Q Fest; Ink Stained Fingers after the Fest concludes. Others, please ask first; I just want to know where this is going.

Beta: the ever-wonderful Rhys, who finds me the words I meant to use.

Every time he died, he managed to get one step closer to the brilliant Light.

This time, however, he not only passed his previous steps, he had surpassed them until he had actually made it to the Light.

What were they up to now? He had stopped thinking believing long ago that he could get away from them in Death.

But that last step had gotten him not only out of the Blackness but into the Light itself. He was so astonished by his success that he froze.

"Give me your hand."

The voice was something new.

"Severus! Give. Me. Your. Hand."

He knew he knew that voice. Had obeyed it while alive. So he raised his now unbroken arm he always awoke from the Blackness body repaired for them to break once more and his unsmashed hand and felt another's. He closed his unbroken fingers around it and suddenly...

The first thing that broke through his awareness was not the absoluteness of the Light, but the warmth.

The dungeon cell they tossed him back into after their amusements had no heat and was so far below ground that it never warmed. They had given him nothing with which to wrap himself for warmth. Or comfort. Not that he was ever really able to move after he had been disapparated back to the thin layer of filthy straw that served as his deathbed.

The Blackness was even colder. Once, early on, he had stopped, too cold to find the ability in himself to continue towards the Light. Even the dungeon, at first, had been warmer. But soon he had gotten used to the coldness and the Blackness and went into their arms as though to a lover who was patiently waiting for him.

The next sensation was of hands touching him. Without pain.

He rested against whoever was holding him and allowed that new heat to chase the chill out of his untorn muscles, his unbroken bones, his beaten spirit.

"It'll be all right now, Severus. You've made it here. You're safe now."

Safe?

Snape felt a bubble of laughter rise through his gut to his throat and then, though he did try to catch it, out of his mouth.

"No such thing," he muttered against the warmth of the other's body.

"I hope I can prove you wrong about that."

The familiarity of the voice nagged at him so that, his curiosity reawakening for the first time in what seemed decades, he pulled back enough from the body to look into the face of...

"Albus?"

Dumbledore smiled at his former Potions instructor.

Snape shook his head slightly. Not certain he was actually seeing what his eyes told him he was.

"You're dead."

Dumbledore's smile grew. "Excellent mind on you still, Severus. I'm pleased to see that they haven't taken that away from you."

Snape pulled back, scuttled awkwardly away from the man watching him. "No. This is another trick."

Dumbledore sat back on his heels. "No, lad, not a trick. You have made it here. Finally."

Snape looked around. All there was was Light. And Dumbledore.

No, he was wrong. He had turned his head to look back the way he had come and there, in the far distance through the Blackness, he could make out a bloodied, broken body.

"I'm truly dead."

"Yes."

Snape mocked, "For how long this time?" And drawing his legs close to his chest, he wrapped his arms around them. For warmth. For protection. For comfort. Resting his cheek on his knees, he examined the former Headmaster who was now sitting cross-legged, watching him in turn.

The last time Snape had seen Dumbledore, the man had been battling a deliriously happy Voldemort. Happy because he had been winning and Dumbledore losing.

Had lost.

Voldemort's last spell had accomplished what he had set out to do and, in front of the eyes of both their supporters, Voldemort had literally blown Dumbledore up.

As the bits and pieces of what had been their hope of victory had rained upon them, those who could had escaped. Those who couldn't had suffered Dumbledore's fate at the hands of Voldemort's supporters.

The far too few who had managed to survive that dark, dark day were thereafter hunted for the pleasure of Voldemort and his Death Eaters. Snape had been one of those who had avoided capture. He had found some others and, with them, had formed a resistence movement. Though few, they had been an effective thorn in the side of the victors until they had been betrayed.

Snape had realized they had been led into a trap just seconds before the trap closed and he had used those scant moments to warn his people, to trigger the trap and to fight long enough hard enough to allow them the time needed to make their escape.

At least he hoped he had.

Once he had awakened on the floor at the feet of Voldemort and Malfoy, he had had other things to occupy his mind.

"I'm sorry, Severus. Until you made it here, to the Light, there was nothing I could do to help you."

Snape raised his head, squinting his eyes as he realized the man in front of him was not as he had been. He had died thin, old and exhausted from the constant battle against an enemy who was growing in strength and power with each passing death. The man watching him, waiting for him to speak, was much younger, robust. Hair a brilliant red once more; eyes now a lively blue behind the half-moon glasses on a face that was as Snape had first seen it, as a new Hogwarts student, all those many years ago.

"I'm surprised that you wanted to help me." Snape couldn't prevent the bitterness from seeping out.

Dumbledore questioned that with his eloquent eyebrows.

"I failed. I couldn't stop him. Couldn't even manage to force them to pause in their progression. I walked into a trap and I don't know if anyone escaped it." Snape dropped his forehead onto his knees as though his head was too heavy for his neck to support.

Dumbledore placed his hand on the nearer of Snape's, closed his fingers over it. "They did. All but two of you. You were a good leader, Severus. You kept them alive and trained them well."

Snape, head still down, scoffed, but his hand moved to clasp Dumbledore's.

"You succeeded in that phase of the battle against Voldemort, as you will in this new one."

Snape glanced up, staring through the curtain of his hair. "Dead, I am still involved?"

Dumbledore tightened his grip on Snape's hand. "Now you inspire them. They hold you up as an example of someone to be followed and they will follow that inspiration to victory."

Snape's disbelief was obvious.

Dumbledore grinned. "What?"

"I'm an inspiration?" Snape shook his head, his bark of laughter incredulous. "Tell that to Potter and his people. I'm sure they can use the laugh."

Dumbledore tightened his hand once more, offering silent encouragement. "Potter and his people, along with others, have merged with yours. They form a stronger unit. And they have gone far underground, back to the one place that Voldemort and his people will not think of hunting them."

"Which is?"

"Back to Hogwarts."

Snape shook his head. "There is no Hogwarts. Voldemort destroyed it. Completely."

"Not quite." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled over the top of his glasses. "Seems a certain Potions Master had some secret, heavily warded workrooms, far beneath the dungeons of Hogwarts."

Snape was noticeably stunned. "How..."

"Seems these workrooms were dug out for this Potions Master by some Goblins who wanted some special potion in return. The rooms did not appear on any plan of Hogwarts and their wards were strong enough for them to escape detection and so destruction."

Some of the old Snape appeared in his sneer. "Then how did Potter find out about them?"

"One of the Goblins survived. He remembered the rooms after his small team joined up with Potter's."

"And how did they get in? I warded those rooms especially carefully."

Dumbledore smiled as though pleased with Snape's revelation. "Yes, you certainly did. But not against apparating. I believe you considered that rather redundant. When Voldemort destroyed Hogwarts, he cancelled all of my wards. Including the one against apparating."

Now the eyebrow that had caused many a student to tremble proved it still existed. "And *Potter* thought of that?"

"No, Granger did."

Snape nodded. "Ah. Yes, she would, wouldn't she?"

"She's cast an additional set of wards, allowing only those who apparate from within the security of the rooms to return to them in that manner. And they should be safe there for some time. You certainly had stocked your workrooms well, Severus. They'll have time to heal, to build up their strength and, all the while, they will be thinking of you, thanking you. In fact," Dumbledore cocked his head, wondering how Snape would respond to the next bit of information, "their battle cry is Remember Snape!'"

Snape snorted his disbelief, returning his head back to his knees. If this were true... Would Dumbledore lie to him? Something...he would have accomplished something after all those defeats.

Behind them, there was the sound of a door resisting being opened. Snape raised his head, looking back. One of the guards was trying to rouse some reaction out of him...out of his body, by kicking it.

"He's going to get Malfoy." Snape's face was without colour, his voice almost calm, but his eyes were blind in his terror. "He'll call me back again."

Snape tried hard to swallow his fear of what would follow: being pulled back from the warmth of the Light, through the safety of the Blackness, back into the body that Malfoy would have healed only to break again at his pleasure. Snape was surprised that he had been allowed out of his body for so long. He was usually called back fairly quickly after entering the Blackness.

Knowing what was waiting for him, he began trembling beyond his control. He curled up tightly around himself and tried to find the strength, the fortitude, to face his inevitable return to the dungeon.

Dumbledore pulled the stiff, fight-depleted man over into his arms. He wrapped his robe around what Snape suddenly realized was his naked body. "Hold onto me, Severus. As tightly as you can. There are limits to Malfoy's and Voldemort's powers. There are places they cannot reach. Hold onto me and together we will show them defeat."

Snape found himself sitting in Dumbledore's lap, legs wrapped around the former Headmaster's back, his arms clasped as tightly as possible around the man's shoulders, hands gripping his own elbows as a lock. He tucked his head into Dumbledore's neck and braced himself.

Dumbledore made certain his robe was draped around Snape, closed his eyes and began chanting warding spells to keep the man here, with him, away from the continuous torture that had been his life in recent months.

Draco Malfoy entered the small cell in the depths of his manor. He had called Snape back so many times that he did so again, almost without thinking on the spells.

Nothing happened.

He began paying attention. He cast his spells again and yet again. Nothing. Not even a glimmer of response.

He grew angry. How dare the former head of Slytherin think he could do this, avoid responding to *his* Master?

Draco Malfoy curled his lip in a manner that his mother had perfected when presented with her husband's dead body at the beginning of the War. She had turned to Draco, her son, and looked at him with the same disdain. "I do not approve of failure, Draco. Our Master is not fond of it either. He would be no less displeased to deal with it...in his son."

And, with that, Draco had understood that the real power in the Malfoy household had not been his father, but the woman who had provided an heir for her Master.

Draco Malfoy had proven to his sire that he was indeed his son and worthy of his trust, of a role in the new scheme of things. Worthy to be his heir.

So when Snape had fallen into their hands, his father had rewarded him with the Potions Master to do with as he pleased. And what had pleased him was to kill the traitor in as many painfully original ways and as many times as possible.

Voldemort had approved, had even participated in his son's more imaginative plays.

But now something had gone wrong and Snape was not returning to his body as ordered. In fact, his body was not even regenerating as it should when he used the spells.

Livid at this disobedience, Draco Malfoy called upon the full strength of his personality and doubled, then redoubled, his efforts.

Snape felt the familiar tug of the spells pulling him back from the Light, through the Blackness, and into his body.

He tightened his hold on Dumbledore and tried hard to accept the fact that, considering how strong Draco Malfoy had gotten over the years, he would probably be forced to rejoin his body yet again.

As the spells grew stronger, he whimpered, suddenly finding a small cache of fight still left in him. He used it, all the time knowing that the longer it took him to go back, the more pain he would suffer for his attempts to deny the man who now owned him.

Dumbledore tightened his grip on the man shuddering in his arms, his spell growing louder as the pull from that other world grew stronger, more insistent.

Snape gasped at the need rising in his body to obey, trying to find the wherewithal within himself to combat the drain on his energy.

It was as if every bone ever broken, every inch of skin ever cut, burnt was responding to Malfoy's call. Snape's grip slackened. His sobs grew louder, more hopeless, as he felt the pull on his body fight Dumbledore's sorcery.

In the dungeon, Malfoy grew angrier and angrier, his spells harsher. How dare anyone defy him? Who did Snape think he was? He was only a plaything, an evening's entertainment! A reminder to all of what happened to those who foolishly betrayed the Master or thought they could win even a skirmish over him!

Snape tried to hang onto Dumbledore but his hands no longer had the strength to hold. His legs loosened and he felt himself being pulled back.

Dumbledore dug his heels in and leaned back, slowly, inexorably, fighting the power of the spells coming from Malfoy until just as he thought he might not be able to hold on any longer, when Malfoy seemed to be winning yet again, there was a shriek of madness from beyond accompanied with a sudden release.

Dumbledore, with Snape barely in his arms, went flying back.

From the dungeon came the enraged scream of "MASTER!"

With care and concern, Dumbledore lay Snape down and checked him over. The black eyes flickered open and all he saw in them was deep despair.

"He's gone to get Voldemort."

Dumbledore nodded, not wasting time on words. The ties that linked Snape to his torturers had to be severed.

His hands skimmed over the now cold body of the man watching him. Whenever he found one of the ties, Dumbledore quickly chanted a spell and Snape felt a slight release, as of a muscle relaxing.

Knowing that there was nothing he could do to aid these spells, Snape silently watched Dumbledore work, almost removed from the intensity of the situation. Finally he shook his head, a dreamy expression on his face. "Once, I would have given anything to have your hands touching me this way."

Dumbledore hesitated and then finished the spell. "You were a child. I couldn't touch you as you wanted."

"I was sixteen. I asked you to take me. You refused. You told me to go away."

Dumbledore looked up over his glasses. "I was a fully grown man, a good sixty years your senior. You may have been legal, Severus, but you were still a child. And I was still your teacher."

"I wonder," Snape murmured to the brightness over them, "if I would have been drawn to the Death Eaters if you had accepted me?"

Snape closed his eyes, keeping still, savouring the feel of the hands on his body removing the links to his pain, knowing that this would, in all probability, be the only time he would ever feel them on him.

Of course, his body reacted to the sensations. He brought his cleansed hand to his mouth and stifled the sound of pleasure that threatened to escape. He didn't want Dumbledore to stop.

Head bowed over his ministering hands, Dumbledore continued softly. "I wanted you, Severus, but I couldn't go against my own ethics for you. By the time you were old enough, no longer my student, you had put barriers up and were no longer interested in my desire for you."

Snape raised his hand to card through the thick richness of Dumbledore's hair. "You're right," he finally acknowledged. "I was too much of a child. Probably even then. I noted your desire but I rejected it. As you had mine. I thought it was vindication, that it would satisfy my hunger for revenge. So childish of me!"

Dumbledore was aware of the responding of Snape's body, the fine thick cock that had provided such pain at the hands of Malfoy and the men allowed to use the Potions Master for Malfoy's amusement. Dumbledore's hand skimmed around, teasingly near, not touching. Snape's hips jerked before he could stop the movement.

As though he hadn't noticed, Dumbledore helped Snape sit up, pulled the Potions Master against him between his legs so that he could easily skim his hands over the man's back, gently using the pads of his fingers to find and remove the links of invisible scars. His fingertips stroked the line between buttocks and again Snape's hips jerked in response.

Snape frowned in concentration. The heat the hands were building in him not only freed him, but was returning him to the fullest of his sense of self.

Between each severing, Dumbledore glanced at the face of the man in his arms. Eyes closed, lower lip pulled in by teeth to keep sounds of pleasure from detracting him from his spells. Deliberately, Dumbledore pressed his own arousal hard against the hip of the other. In silent response, Snape's erection thickly rubbed against his belly.

"Severus?"

Black eyes fought the heaviness of eyelids.

With gentle grace, Dumbledore claimed the man's mouth with his.

Snape opened to the taste of sweet lemon and warmth and the feeling of belonging that had always eluded him while he had lived.

Dumbledore's lips found their way to Snape's ear. "Severus, I can release the final link with my hands or I can use my cock. The decision can only be must only be yours, Severus. Which is it to be?"

Snape's hand slipped into the robe to find Dumbledore's cock alert and ready for him.

"Your cock, Albus. Use your cock. I want to feel it in me once before whatever happens happens. I want to have the memory of it with me when...if Voldemort calls me back to his pleasure."

Snape moved to turn around, to offer his ass when Dumbledore stopped him. "No, love, face me. I want to see your face." With a youthful grin that promised delight, his hands collected the pre-come from both their cocks to serve as lube. Arms tight around each other, face to face, Dumbledore slowly slipped into Snape's body, the touch of his cock severing the last link to the power of Evil.

Snape wrapped his legs around the man he had so wanted still so wanted and watched those blue eyes darken, the irises widen until all he could see was the reflection of himself smiling at his lover as they brought each other to completion.

"Mine," said Dumbledore.

"Yours," agreed Snape. Until Voldemort, he thought.

From beyond, the dungeon door opened and Voldemort, with his son, filled what little space Snape's body did not.

"So, the traitor thinks to escape his punishment!" snarled the Dark Lord.

His hands spread open above the lifeless body, Voldemort ordered his servant his slave back to him.

Dumbledore rested his body on Snape's and they wrapped their arms around each other. Dumbledore chanted spells of retention; Snape, not daring to hope, listened to his lover's voice, absorbing the cadence as though a mantra against future times.

Voldemort, as had his son, grew angrier at the slave's refusal to obey him. He sought stronger spells and used them just as unsuccessfully.

He was livid. How dare anyone challenge his power!

Albus held his lover tightly. "I love you, Severus. I shall not allow you to be taken from me yet again. Hold on to me, love."

And, with growing confidence, Severus did, murmuring the love he had never truly lost for the man he had so wanted those many years ago.

Voldemort sent a surge of power seeking the links to the man who was escaping him.

Nothing.

This hunt was depleting him. He panted, recouping his forces. He refused to stop. To admit failure. Tried again. And again. It was no use: the traitor had escaped him through Death.

Malfoy, realizing that his Master-father was no more successful than he had been, stepped back from the anger of the Dark Lord. This was the first time since his victory that Voldemort had failed at anything he had attempted. It was a fine crack in the power of the Dark Lord, but a crack nevertheless, a crack that would be used to good effect by those fighting against the Darkness that had settled on the land.

"Hang him...it...by its feet from the oak at the crossroads for all to see the results of my displeasure. My scavengers shall feed on it."

But the body disappeared soon after it was hanged and no one knew how or where it had been taken.

Albus grinned at the man in his arms and playfully rubbed his cheek against the other's. "I think, dear heart, we should move on."

Severus raised a hand and caressed his lover's face. "Do you still want me?"

Albus tried hard to look severe. "Why else would I have come for you? Come now," he said, drawing his naked lover to his feet, "you must be cold." He pulled the younger man close to him, wrapping his robe around him. "Come with me, love, and I will keep you warm."

"Forever?" Severus leaned into the warmth he had so yearned for.

"Forever?" Albus settled his arm on Severus's shoulders while his lover's found its way around his waist. With a teasing grin, Albus stole a last kiss. "Oh, dearling, I shall want you for longer than forever."

The End

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