A/N: Week 3 challenge with Bramblerose4. Prompt: Insomnia. Restrictions: 300 min words.
I don't own Harry Potter.
Insomnia
Severus Snape was not a morning person. He was hardly a noon person too, or evening person for that matter, but he hated mornings. He had passed hate a few town back and couldn't think of a word besides 'abhor' to describe his hate for mornings.
Mornings meant waking up. Something he would love to do once he actually fell asleep, that is. He hadn't slept a wink since Lily died a few weeks ago. He felt like an inferi, or a zombie, whichever was more horrid, and the way he moved, sometimes slowly and stumbling into things, proved it. All he needed was the lack of a beating heart.
He also snapped at everyone, even McGonagall, who was visibly becoming increasingly annoyed with him as the days wore on. Just because Dumbledore vouched for his trustworthiness didn't mean she couldn't still hex off his unmentionables.
Mornings meant work. He was a Potions professor in training – under the safe wing of Albus Dumbledore and his mentor, Slughorn, he was about as safe as a nineteen-year-old former supporter of the dark side could get. He swore Dumbledore could even get Bellatrix off if he tried. That man could work wonders, and the fact that he was good at manipulating people was also good.
He wasn't in the mood for work. All he wanted to do was to curl up on his bed and take a nap, but that would just lead to some more thinking, more morbid thoughts, more insanity… seeing as sleeping was an elusive thing, like his chances of ever having normal hair.
So, when he woke up that morning, he was suspicious. He had fallen asleep? Why and how? He severely needed to repeat whatever had been done to ascertain his sleeping habits in the future.
He swung his legs off the bed and looked around… this wasn't his bedroom, or rather, his quarters. It was all very neat and smelled faintly fruity. He decided that he liked the smell. It was clear that the person wasn't poverty-stricken, but nor were they swimming in gold coins. They made enough to get by.
There was a pitcher of water with a glass next to it, which he quickly filled, mostly as something to do. He was hoping the real owner of the bedroom would enter and tell him what had happened, because his memory of the previous night ended with his evening pumpkin juice.
The door opened the tiniest bit.
"Severus?" He knew that voice. He looked up, finding a pair of bespectacled eyes staring at him.
"Professor!" He shrieked rather unmanly. How did he end up in McGonagall's house? Or was it her quarters? He wasn't sure.
"I've told you, if we're going to be working together, I would prefer it if you called Minerva." She said it in a kind voice.
"My apologies," he said quickly, "but how did I get here?" He gestured to what he assumed was her spare bedroom.
She entered the room and sat down on the bed next to him.
"I had to do something to make you sleep, boy, you were severely grating and I was two minutes away from hexing your toes off."
"Is that your strange way of caring?" He teased his old professor.
"If you tell anyone, I will vehemently deny it." She shook her head before standing again, telling him to get ready for breakfast, and leaving him to his thoughts.
She had slipped a sleeping draught into his pumpkin juice! Who would've thought the Gryffindor head had a bit of Slytherin cunning?
A/N: Please review!