Author's Note: Written for Round 1 of the QLFC 6

Team: Pride of Portree

Position: Chaser 1

Prompt: write in a genre that you have never used before (horror)

Prompts Used:

3 (quote) "Adventure is not outside man; it is within." - George Eliot

8 (object) knife

9 (word) homemade

Word Count (excluding Author's Note): 2357

A/N: with many a tip of the hat to the Bard himself for the title and inspiration for this work. Horror is a genre that I think can be more nuanced that just blood and gore, but I've found the will to add a bit of both, just for good measure.

Also, there is no specified time frame for this piece, although I do not see it occurring prior to Year 5 or beyond. Could fit into a universe where SS survives or be a "sliding door" of LL during her time at Hogwarts, but before the final battle. Either way, it is most certainly AU from the cannon.


Infirm of Purpose: a dream

She could not remember what caused her to wake so early. The sun had barely peaked the horizon to pierce the tall tower of the Ravenclaw dormitory when her eyes fluttered open.

The sight that greeted them was a horror.

From crown to foot, Luna found herself sticky and matted. One glance at her caked fingers told her it was blood. As she frantically patted herself over, she only felt more tacky globules of coagulation, places that were still warm and damp, catching her hands in her hair and on her robes. Everywhere she looked was a red ruin; her coverlet, her pillows, her sheets.

Beside her bed lay a knife; carved bone and sharp steel. Nondescript, but for the gore that covered it. Bloody fingerprints were smeared from pommel to crossguard.

She wanted to scream, but she didn't dare. What if someone found her? What if they saw her like this? She stuffed her hands in her mouth and bit down to stop herself, her body convulsing with fear and agony. It was too much to take in; she had no anchor tethering her to anything solid. It was all pulling apart into little fragments like a shattered mirror.

Her fingers were sweet.

They were covered in blood, and in her mouth, and she felt a sickening sensation in her stomach as it roiled in the realization of what she was doing—or what she had done—or—

The threads were fraying faster. And suddenly, the knife was in her hand again.

She ran.

How? How would she explain this? How could she? She had no idea what had happened.

Luna was accustomed to sleepwalking. It was more than occasional. She slept in her shoes, for Merlin's sake; that's how common it was for her.

But she had never woken up like this.

The halls seemed darker than normal. She plunged headlong into spaces that were more shadow than real and ran until her legs gave out, leaving her panting on the floor on her hands and knees. She thought she might have made it as far as the ground floor. Maybe.

She abandoned her robes and threw off her shoes, suddenly determined to no longer hear the squelching of the blood that had been absorbed by her socks. She peeled them off, two gruesome red rounds of cotton, pooling onto the carpet. She closed her eyes. She needed to understand what was happening to her. But how?

And when she peeled her lashes apart again, the knife sat at her feet, glistening; newly wet and vibrating with it's own anger. She backed away, creeping up the wall to gain her feet.

And she ran.

Darkness reigned in the castle. Luna stumbled more times than she could count. With each spill or fall, she would open more wounds of her own. Scrapes and cuts abounded from the stone walls, while nails seemed to jump into her path as they grasped for purchase or braced for stability. Glass shards cut her feet, and then her shins and hands when she crawled.

This was like not sleepwalking. Of that, she was sure. It was a nightmare worse than that.

And still, she ran.

When she burst through the door into the chill night air, it was shocking. Hadn't it only just been morning? Hadn't she woken up this way?

The dew on the grass stung her feet. She continued to walk slowly out into the night, her vision as diminished outside as it had been in. As she made her way, she gulped in the cold air, feeling more clarity of mind with every deep breath. Clarity was not a relief.

Fear. Rage. Agony. Was there a reason I did not kill for? She was not waking from this dream.

There was no feeling left in her when she reached the edge of the lake, its thin, icy crust giving way beneath her toes. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to be clean. She stood, facing into the wind that blew across the open plain of the water and reached up for the first button at her throat. Nothing made sense anymore; but did it ever?

And she found the knife, again. Tucked into the waist of her skirt.

"'What, will these hands ne'er be clean?'" she cried out into the night as she threw herself into the water.

XXXXX

He surged through the doors to the Infirmary bedraggled and covered in gillyweed. Madame Pomfrey had a smile on her face and an admonishment on her lips until she saw the crumpled body in his arms.

"Sh—sh—sh—she w—w—was in th—th—th—the l—l—l—lake. Sh—she w—w—was i—in th—the L—lake." He let out a shivering exhalation and tried again. "S—She w—w—was in the l—lake!"

The matron was instantly a flurry of motion. She called for several vials of potions while on her way across the room to meet Severus Snape and his charge at the nearest bed. Pushing two flasks of Pepper Up potion at him, she also waved him over with a warming charm while pulling back bed sheets and beginning the assessment of what seemed to be one Luna Lovegood.

"I've taken away your shakes," she said without looking. "You can work on drying yourself. And be efficient. I need to know everything, and now!" She continued to work over the cold, blue, wrinkled body in the bed.

"There isn't much I can say," he said, waving his wand over this clothes twice over to remove all the water. "I was making my way back from the herb garden behind Hagrid's hut when I noticed something white floating on the water. I approached the shore and—well, I rushed her here as soon as I could manage." Snape found he was still rubbing his hands together to warm them. The chill was bone deep.

"I will need to work on bringing up her body temperature. Perhaps when she regains consciousness, she can help us put the pieces together." Madame Pomfrey continued to bustle about her charge, mumbling to herself and casting charms about the patient. Luna lay stock still, already a corpse if not for the occasional blinking of her eyelids.

"Let me see if her rooms shed any light," Snape offered. His talents were most definitely not of the healing kind, and he loathed to be useless. He swooped out of the infirmary in long, purposeful strides for Ravenclaw Tower.

It was on his way that he heard the commotion that diverted him. He ducked into the theater at the bottom of the North Tower. It was clear from the mumbling and crying that he had come far enough, and he was grateful to have been spared the narrow stairwell and steep climb to the classrooms above.

"Sybill?" he burst through a door off-stage right into a working anti-room. Sybill Trelawney sat surrounded by bolts of cloth, renderings of material that had, perhaps at one time, been costumes. At first sight, they seemed like nothing more than random heaps of silk and velvet. Professor Trelawney snapped around, unsteady, surprised by the unexpected intrusion on top of the mess she sat in the midst of.

"Severus? Wha—w—whatever are you doing here?" she gasped, tears clearly wet on her face. She made no move to hide them.

"I—I heard your sobs. What has happened here?" he realized too late he had no cover story for why he would be in the North Tower. It was not a place he frequented, and, not knowing the nature of Luna's ailment, he was loathe to speak of it. He frowned, reflecting on his lack of preparedness.

Sybill did not have either the clarity or keenness of mind to probe. "I wish I knew—" she began to tear up again. "This was costuming I was working on for our Spring production. I had gotten (hiccup) a bit (hiccup) ahead and (hiccup)—oh! I can't (hiccup) seem (hiccup) to (hiccup) stop (hiccup).

"Have a seat. I'll get you a glass of water."

She settled herself in a nearby chair and Snape continued through the room towards another door that let him out back beyond the stage, into the bowels of the rigging in search of cup he could use.

What greeted him stopped him in his tracks.

The stage craft itself had been upended and tortured. Knots riddled the curtain ropes, lights hung precariously from their moorings with bulbs shattered and crushed underfoot. Dishes, cups and candles lay smashed and strewn about the floor. He kneeled down and placed his fingers in a sticky puddle of liquid on the floor. The weak light showed it to be as red as fresh blood, but his sensitive nose told him that it was far too sweet-smelling to be the genuine article. Cautiously, he put a finger to his tongue.

"Stage blood," he whispered aloud to no one.

And then, it came to him.

Props.

He stormed back into the room. "What play is this?" he yelled at her.

"What?"

"What play?" he demanded with his usual impatience heightened by the urgency of his task. "What production are you staging here, Sybill? Think!"

"I—uh—um, Macbeth. We're going to perform (hiccup) Macbeth! Why?"

He cringed, squeezing his eyes shut for a brief moment at the blunder. Anyone who truly understood theater knew not to say the name of "The Scottish Play" when in-house, but he couldn't stop to argue theatrical superstition with Sybill now. He was beginning to suspect that Luna's problem wasn't about breaking with theatrical tradition. It was entirely magical; and cursed all the same.

"And this?" he pointed to the dress on the form. Elegant in its simplicity, it was beautiful; except of course, that it was a catastrophe of bloodied handprints and smears. Conspicuous for the dagger-sized hole at the breast. He ran his fingers over the rent, probing it's depth into the batting beneath. It was not shallow.

"F—f—for Lady Mac—Macbeth," Sybill stammered. "I had been working on it just last night. I had a fit of inspiration." She turned her face, moving her eyes from the costume to him, and then to the floor.

Severus wrapped his arms tightly about his chest in an effort to ward off a growing chill. He stepped back, continuing to consider the mannequin and it's grotesque display.

"Had you cast yet?" he finally asked. "The production, I mean. Had you cast your actors?"

"No. But I was surprised by some of the auditions, and had been fretting over a somewhat controversial choice. Thankfully, I had the holidays over which to mull the decision."

"I think I know of whom you speak," he answered. "Did she have any inkling that you were considering her for a role?"

"Not that I know of," Sybill answered. "She was here helping to inventory the property, as she was want to do during breaks. I believe she expected to be the Prop Mistress again; she seemed to enjoy the job. It suited her."

The props. The knife. The homemade blood.

He flew back to the Infirmary, all but earning his Dungeon Bat moniker in his haste.

"There is an object!" he shouted across the empty room towards Madame Pomfrey as she tended to the only occupant in the Infirmary. "Find it. It's on her." He was racing towards the sickbed as Poppy was pulling back the covers from Luna.

The knife fell out of the folds of sheets.

"NO!" he shouted as Poppy reached for it. "Don't touch it!"

He retrieved his wand swiftly from the sleeve of his robes and gently levitated the knife off of the bed. Luna's eyes shot open, and she screamed like an animal in a trap.

"Cursed," he whispered.

"What do we do?" she asked. Her hands were already knotted together as she fretted over the girl's broken body. A Healer like Poppy Pomfrey was unused to being helpless when it came to taking care of her charges.

"She is beyond our care, Poppy. We must alert St. Mungo's."

"Will she—?"

"I don't know."

He eased the knife back down towards her, and Luna's hand grasped at the hilt, covetously. She seemed to calm, but Severus suspected that in her mind, it was anything but calm. He sat on the foot of her bed, and tentatively reached in.

Legilimens.

And the world went red.

Snape saw Luna's struggle against the curse. The knife, falling awkwardly out of the box of dinnerware. Luna grabbing it up and placing it away from the other flatware, thinking it was a weapon that had been misplaced. And later, when she instead found it in her pocket as she made her way back towards the storage closet with the other swords—her "forgetting" to leave it among it's fellow weapons. The blade traveling with her back to the dormitory, quietly nestled into her robes; and into her mind.

All the violence Luna had taken on had been real to her. The dress form in the green room had, instead, been Cho Chang, who she'd grabbed, wrestled to the ground and stabbed in the chest. Each cloak and kilt had been a student, a friend, a parent...and with each, the hold of the accursed blade grew stronger in her mind.

As he released the spell, Snape felt himself deflate with exhaustion. Luna sat, tranquil; as if made of stone. He watched her, knowing that within, her mind spun in increasingly vicious circles.

"What did you see?" Poppy asked, timidly.

"'Adventure is not outside man; it is within.'"

"Pardon me?"

"Sorry," Snape replied. "Just something I read somewhere once.

"It could not be more apt considering what I just saw."

Madame Pomfrey frowned, considering the citation. "The results of it seem much more a horror than an adventure," she finally said.

"Not all adventures are wonderful or exciting," he replied, softly. "Some are horrible, and painful, and never-ending.

"Who would know that better than I?"

He rose, and left without looking back. He had his own terrors. Luna would have to face hers alone.