"YOU!" Hadrian shouted. "TRAITOR! I KNEW IT! I ALWAYS KNEW!"
"Because I always told you," the Passenger said.
Snape looked at him. Not with triumph, but with an expression carved from colossal exhaustion, as if a weight bent his narrow shoulders, and his eyes were black lakes where unspeakable secrets drowned.
"Things… have changed, Percival," his voice was a strand of barbed wire, dragged through invisible pain. "You will thank me for what I'm doing."
"You're with THEM! You're filth," Hadrian spat, the words flung like venom.
A faint, almost invisible twitch crossed Snape's pale face. He murmured, more to the shadows than to Hadrian, in a tone that was nearly a confession to the void:
"When you find her…" He paused, heavy with meaning. "…you will understand. She will explain."
Hadrian thrashed, fury erupting like a volcano in his chest.
"Worm! Crawling vermin! You were always the Dark Lord's dog!"
Snape's eyes seemed impossibly tired.
"You will understand. She has a plan. Soon no one else will need to suffer. Everyone will be happy…"
Snape raised his wand. Not with violence, but with a funereal solemnity. The ebony tip touched Hadrian's sweaty forehead—cold as death.
"Dormire."
The spell left his lips like a near-gentle whisper, a brutal contrast to the darkness around them.
Hadrian felt the world collapse. His muscles surrendered, consciousness slipped through his fingers like sand. The darkness wasn't invasive—it was a heavy, welcoming mantle pulling him toward nothingness. His fury, his fear, his pain, all dissolved into a vague silence.
"You fool," the Passenger muttered, shaking his head. It was the last thing he heard.
Snape remained still, watching the boy who carried so much hatred and so much fate.
No triumph touched his face; if anything, he looked resigned.
He knelt, his knees pressing against the cold asphalt. From the depths of his robes, he pulled a tiny crystal vial containing a greenish liquid that pulsed with its own light.
He poured it meticulously around Hadrian and the site of the duel.
The ground glowed with a cold, ghostly light, then faded, leaving only the smell of ozone—and absence.
"No traces," he murmured to the silence, like a sentence.
From his cloak, he withdrew a rune stone, black as the space between stars. Its carvings shimmered with a dull red, runes etched with meticulous care. He whispered activation words in the language of the ancients.
"Crimson."
The stone pulsed, and letters of golden fire emerged, wrapping first Snape, then Hadrian, like serpents of light. They writhed, alive.
The air cracked with the sound of shattering glass—
and both vanished, leaving behind nothing but the rain and the faint echo of laughter on the wind.
--
Author's note: From this point onward, the story gets intense and may be unsuitable for sensitive readers. There will be pain, suffering, and tears, although with a few unexpected moments.