Title: Tomorrow's Men
Words: 453
Summary: Yesterday will always have an influence on tomorrow, no matter the number of days in between.
Disclaimer: I don't own the diddly doo of any of it. I just steal and play. ;)
Snape stood there, like he had so many times before, at the head of the class, his hands clasped behind his back. His low-heeled boots made tiny clacks against the stone floors with every step he took – his pacing guiding his body from one side of the room to the other.
Each table, lined up in their neat rows, was filled with students. Black robes, House crests, straight backs, eyes forward. Snape was instructing. His words slid through the room like a snake's hiss, riding close to the ground, rising and falling on the whim of an invisible, forked tongue.
Accusations. Today's lesson was in remorse. Today's teachings were about choice and consequence. Today's tutelage concerned the proprieties of time management and the fool decisions poorly made by schoolboys.
Snape turned and faced the class abruptly, his spine stiffened, his body jerking as though a steel rod had been jammed through its center and the rod was the means by which any and all movements were allowed. His mouth continued to open and shut, his lips meeting and leaving each other as the litany of incomprehensible whispers kept a steady pace, slowly filling the room like suffocating waters.
He stared and taking their cue from him, the class turned to stare. Black robes, House crests, no eyes – they stared but they were sightless in doing so, their skin grown over their eye sockets in webs of spindly silver scar tissue. They opened their mouth and moths flew out, black and thick in their numbers, swarming the room, filling it with the screams of fluttering wings. The drowning waters wouldn't touch them.
All the while white tears ran down the length of Snape's soured face. White tears, leaking memories that fell un-captured, un-known, lost and forgotten to the floor. Moments in time gone by forever lost.
A hand reached out, a glass, a container, a means of preserving what was being lost but it was late – too late, too late, too late.
Harry woke gasping, body shivering, covering in a light sheen of sweat. The shadows at his side shifted and a hesitant hand reached out, fingertips ghosting down his side, disturbing the random patters of beaded liquid upon his skin.
"Harry?" This whisper was warm, concerned, loving, caring. Harry turned to it, tucked himself against it, let it hold him, comfort him, offer him lies made with the best of intentions. It'll be okay would never be the truth but it was still nice to hear.
Together, lying back down, wrapped together intimately, the dreams couldn't return. Light and dark, pale skin entwined with paler skin… moonlight danced over the sheets and the boys within, watching as they grew together into tomorrow's men.