Miracle - Snolidays 2021

Fourth entry for the fest and it’s angsty. Thank you @frenchpresswriter for your diligent beta-reading <3

https://archiveofourown.org/works/35609554

Dumbledore was old and weary, and he rubbed his eyes with only one hand. The other hand might have fallen off if he dared apply such pressure to it.

“You fool,” he muttered to himself: if he had not been tempted, he might have lived to see the end of the war. He allowed the stoic facade to crack when he was alone. To see the end of the war after all these years and all this work… he deserved that much, didn’t he? He’d had nothing else to gain from making it his personal business to destroy Lord Voldemort. Then again, one way or the other, to see the end of the war would be to see Severus die. It was so unfair for the old to bury the young, and how much more of this could he take?

For the old to bury the young. Heh. Gellert would have found it deliciously funny. It wasn’t fair at all, and yet in a sense, Albus had done just that: Severus was marked for death as sure as he was, and the odds were still in Riddle’s favour. It would take another miracle, Albus realized, and his only consolation was that miracles were rarely obvious. Of course they were not obvious in the sense that one anticipated them – everybody knew that. But so often, they weren’t obvious even as they were happening, even when they already happened.

He had thought, once, that Gellert’s arrival at the house next door was a miracle. Another wizard, his equal (and really, what were the odds), and a handsome one to boot. He had seized this miracle with both hands. If you hadn’t, you might have still had them. Gellert would have found that funny too. Everyone but Albus thought Harry Potter’s survival a miracle, but Albus knew it was an experiment, and it hardly counted as a miracle when a hypothesis, based on a well-founded theory, turned out to be correct. Dumbledore had always theorized on the power of love and on the power of choice, and Harry’s survival meant evidence. That was all.

The miracle had happened much before, and it looked like nothing much at the time. That a Death Eater could be brave enough to ask his master to spare a mother, the master being the type to murder an infant? That Riddle actually tried to deliver on his promise? For all your disgust, Albus, that ended up saving the world for at least ten years.

The miracle was Severus, not Harry, and again, Albus seized that miracle and never let it go. He wanted to care but he couldn’t afford to, because before long, they would all be dead.

A miracle, that a man so corrupted could love a childhood friend more than his own life. A miracle that a man so broken could face more danger and more death and yet complain only about the dunderheads that grew dumber every year.

Albus had told Harry that the prophecy being overheard had been a tragedy, but he knew the prophecy had waited for Severus just as much as it had waited for Albus himself. Only Severus could make it come true, and only Dumbledore could divine an interpretation that would give Harry and the Wizarding World a fighting chance when all was lost. Though it had not felt like a miracle when it had happened - not at all. It felt like a nuisance. Without his Pensieve, Albus might not even have remembered what the Prophecy had said at all.

The one with the power to vanquish the Dart Lord approaches… said while Severus Snape was approaching. Even Gellert might have found thatjoke to be in poor taste. In the end, Albus, you would have lost your right hand or your right-hand man. Now your right-hand man will lose you. That is all. A minor difference in the grand scheme of things. He closed his eyes.

It would have been easier for Severus to die for not killing me. His allegiance would have been known, at least, and he would have understood why, and I would have been able to help Harry, might have lived to see the end.If I hadn’t met Gellert a century ago, we might not have needed this many miracles.

Dumbledore downed a goblet of the golden potion that kept the curse contained. It went down smooth as fine scotch and warm as hot chocolate. Were it not for all these miracles, Severus might have been a world-famous healer.

Albus sighed, cleared his mind, and prepared himself for another private lesson with Harry.