Title: Existing is My Nightmare
Chapter: 1/?
Author: Bleeding Star Goddess
Rating: M
Pairings: Severus/Harry
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Warnings: This story will contain situations of torture, extreme violence, relationships of the homosexual and heterosexual nature, and character mental instability, as well as graphicdepictions of gore, this story is AU and does not take place within the Harry Potter timeline
Summary: "You don't have nightmares Severus," Harry chuckled, "What you have are bad dreams, but at least you get to wake up from yours."
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Chapter One: To Have the Nightmare
"DAMNIT ALL ALBUS YOU ASK TOO MUCH OF ME THIS TIME! I REFUSE!" is what he wanted to yell at the headmaster who sat there smiling at him, eyes twinkling in that infuriating way that let the headmaster know what Severus was thinking. That same twinkle let the man know how to bend Severus to his "suggestions." Oh Severus would like nothing more than to cram the bowl of lemon drops down the man's throat and let him choke on them while he danced around his desk laughing and taunting.
His long spider fingers released the vice grip on the arms of the chair; the nearly sentient creature sighing in gratitude and hardening the cushions beneath him in retaliation. The noise and din of the headmaster's office prattled in his ear as incessantly as the empty-minded brats he had to teach daily. A slow breath hissed itself from between his clenched teeth and his black pools pictured more creative murders of the old fool he called confidant.
And yet, the headmaster just sat there, smiling with his fingers laced and set atop his desk. The phoenix was perched upon a Merlin-awful hat with bright pink and blue flamingos and green and yellow hedgehogs flying and rolling around on his matching robes.
No, Severus would not, could not deny this man, especially if he wanted too. So instead of the curse and the slamming denial he so desperately wanted to scream, he nodded his head.
"Very well Albus, I shall do what I can."
"Wonderful Severus!" the old coot beamed, clapping his hands once. The man had always known the answer yet he seemed to act inordinately pleased and surprised by the Potions Master's response. "Poppy is just about to put him to bed so you best hurry," the man skillfully suggested in such a way that truly meant "go now and don't fuck up" but then again Albus had always been a master of word play.
Severus bit back the growl in his throat, knowing that the headmaster had heard at least a part of the sound since he gave him a warning glance over the rim of his glasses. Severus nodded his head and unable to even slam the door behind him for the satisfaction of retaliation.
Once outside the headmaster's office he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, the momentary indulgence towards habit and weakness a swift occurrence before he stalked down the halls, a snarl on his lips and points taken from any student who so much as blinked in his direction.
With an irritation and an ulcer he was sure such situations were developing, he went over in his mind the very reason he was in the circumstances he was about to partake in.
Potter.
It was always blasted Harry Potter. Spawn of the wretch and hellion James and Lily Potter.
And once again the damnable Scourge-That-Wouldn't-Be-Killed was in trouble and Albus had put him to task of fixing the matter!
Oh he would kill them both if the alternative was not so disgusting!
He growled and snapped a detention at a first year Gryffindor for breathing too loudly. The action didn't lessen his ire by any means as he knew it would bring Minerva's scorn upon his brow and beat him senseless until he revoked the action. His steps were silent plagues on the stone as he stalked towards the hospital wing.
Harry Potter was having nightmares. Alright, so even Severus had to admit it was more than that as he took away points from a Ravenclaw for existing and being a dark mark on the earth's surface.
The boy was going insane or (more likely) acting like it in any case. And the little attention-seeking-spawn was doing a bang-up job of it too, a marvelous performance worthy of Shakespeare's stage.
His little worshipers - Weasley and Granger - had expressed to their head of house that Potter would scream with such ferocity he broke through three different silencing spells, all of varying degree in strength. And it wasn't just at night, no, even Severus got to witness first-hand the boy's performance. Potter would just stare off into space be it in class or at meals and suddenly burst out laughing or start screaming with a similar intensity described by his companions as tears rolled down his eyes. In the middle of class he would grow inexplicably violent, and no one was safe from his fists. Granger had, in fact, been the latest victim as he had nearly choked her to death, the boy would then either see what he had done and break down in tears begging for forgiveness or quite literally skip off as if he had not just nearly committed murder.
He had taken a penchant for standing and sitting in high areas. The memory of the boy dancing and singing in the rafters of the Great Hall was still quite lucid in his memories. Potter had rained bird feathers covered in blood down onto the masses of the students. His giggling and laughing interrupted his song "Alouette je te plumerai" as the screams filled the hall, a dead school owl in his hands.
There were a slew of other grievances that would make an Azkaban prisoner proud. One particular moment was during dinner in the dining hall he had gotten up and charged at Albus, the intent to kill clearly defined within the gleam of his eyes as he had a wand brandished and the words "Ava-" on his lips before about forty stunners had slammed into his body and rendered him immobile, the hall sitting stunned before breaking out into screeches and exclamations.
Severus turned down a hallway, pausing in his quick stride to disarm one of his Slytherin's from stunning another student, scaring them both just enough that they bolted and he hadn't bothered to assign detention to either.
It wasn't that they had waited for Potter's conditions to get worse. Quite the contrary, they had tried every possible remedy to not only asses the brat's sudden inclination to gore, violence, and insanity but to cure it as well. They had no idea what was causing the boy to act as he did only that it was a serious problem. Of course, that didn't stop the leeches and dregs of society known as the press from writing up story after story about the maddened Boy-Who-Lived and how the death of Voldemort was affecting his mind (although that may have very well been the truth) and that he would merely become the next Dark Lord and other such tripe that scattered and littered around the court-yards and hallways of the school.
They had exhausted nearly every option they could think of, trying to avoid sending Potter to St. Mungo's at all cost since they would not be able to stop the press from getting a hold of him there. It was, not entirely surprisingly, Granger's suggestion that they enter Potter's dreams since that's when he seemed the most violent and unstable. And that had led him to a rather frustrating conversation with Albus; Severus was going to be the one to enter Potter's dreams while Albus would act as the anchor since he was definitely the more powerful of the two. Albus would see the dreams but be unable to interact whilst Severus was stuck having to deal with whatever creature the boy's lack of intelligence and imagination could spawn.
Albus would be there as well. Severus had to go and get the potion that would allow them to enter the Potter-brat's dreams and link his mind to Potter's own. It needed to be a smooth transition into his dream-state so as not to alert whatever-the-hell it was causing the boy to be downright bonkers to their presence.
He could not even take pleasure in the calming affect his dungeons' held within their stone-walls as he had to enter his private labs, grab a potion they had prepared just for this situation and head back towards the infirmary. He refused to let any sort of living creature short of himself and Albus into his lab, so asking a house-elf to get it had been out of the question. Of course, now he had to get back up to the main corridors and to Poppy's domain before the sleep potion they had given Potter took affect.
He was too dignified to sprint, but he was certainly winded as he arrived back into the infirmary, Albus smiling contently at him even as worry ate at his sockets as Potter had been restrained to the bed.
"Ah Severus my boy, shall we then? Do recall though that we are not entirely aware what will be in store for us," let it never be said that the headmaster couldn't make any situation seem like a matter of afternoon tea.
Severus growled producing the potion he would drink and the instructions for Poppy for when he and Albus went under and into Potter's cobwebs he had the audacity to call a mind.
He was sure Albus had also instructed her on what she could, could not, should, and never under any circumstance even if the resurrected corpse of Voldemort working in tandem with an enraged Molly Weasley were to blast down the school should not do.
Severus removed his outer robe for the sake of comfort as he put a hand atop Potter's own after having downed half of the potion. He watched as the rest was mixed with an equal amount of water for Albus and he drank it as well after taking the Potions Master's hand into his own. The man had been wise enough to transfigure comfortable chairs next to the bed as they were soon under the potion's effects and inside Potter's head.
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Alouette je te plumerai is a song about plucking a bird. The rough translation
Alouette je te plumerai is "Lark I will pluck you"