Author's Notes: I guess that you can consider this an add to "Hard to Breathe". I'm not too happy about the result of this. Too bad.

Anyway, rated for language and suicide.

Written for a challenge.

Disclaimer: JK Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books.

Dreaming about Death

"A punishment to some, to some a gift, and to many a favor." -Seneca

"Death ends a life, not a relationship." -Jack Lemmon

I have choices, many of them, and it seemed that I've always chose the worst possibilities.

It's a curse, I tell you. The curse of the Malfoys. Damn it.

The cement floor was rough as always, hard, and hard enough to kill a man if his head fell hard on it. But they weren't so stupid, those people from the Ministry. I was one of them. They put a spell there, on the floor, so that a foot high of rough dried grass was piled over the hard ground.

They didn't want you to die.

They wanted you to live.

But that's not what the others wanted. Me either. Lingering there, everyday seemed to last forever. The weather cold, always cold but not freezing, and the humidity almost unbearable but not so much that we would suffocate. They were cruel.

Their dark cloaks, masking their faceless figures, gliding over the cold hard floor without sound. Their laughs weren't music; they were torture. After each of their laugh came a scream, then a loud thud. Another prisoner gone. Another soul consumed by the Dementors. But there was no blood spilling over the floors; there was just a forgotten soul.

Never in my life have I supported them. The Dark Lord never listened to me, or any other man. He searched for friends, anyone, and sometime he made mistakes. Big mistakes. But none could blame him. He was our leader, our reason, and everything that we believed in. You see, he was the one who made it all real; he made the simple beliefs of the great Salazar Slytherin into a true religion. Not a cult, but a religion. He was the head, of course. We had rules, like a true government, and goals to reach, eliminate parasites of the Magical World. Those who supported us were granted gifts, but those who rebelled were fairly punished.

It is the way that we've been brought up, the way that we've been taught.

Hitler was once seen as right too. But the Dark Lord isn't Hitler.

The Dark Lord hasn't created camps, has he? We're still humans. We're righteous. Righteous in our own way. We're preventing magic to get into the hands of those who aren't capable of maneuvering it. We're preventing all those imminent dangers. No one understood.

There was no light without darkness. No white without black.

We aren't black; we're just the black dot on the yang side.

They called for me, breathing out my name so carefully. But something held them back. I knew that it was the Dark Lord, he had power over them. Power that was so hard to maintain. I, like I said, never supported his actions upon the Dementors. I preferred the giants.

No sane person lived here. All my comrades had fallen. I was the one with the greatest endurance, as always. I'm pretty sure that I'm still sane. Yes, I am. Love kept me away from crossing the border and falling into the bottomless pit of insanity. I owed someone for that.

Narcissa.

It wasn't a passionate love at first, and it still isn't. It was an arranged marriage but we were content. We still are, I hope.

I pounded on the metal bars, my fists curled into tight balls. My hands were shriveled up, the skin wrapped around the bones and not much muscle stood in between them. I wasn't hungry. I was only hungry for my soul.

"I still love you. Nothing will separate us."

That wasn't my voice. I didn't have a voice anymore.

It was him, a traitor, I thought.

"Lucius, how charming," he merely smiled, his black hair falling over his eyes and his bleach white skin. He certainly did not have any time for a haircut. "Oh and that was the note your wife left you."

I nodded in reply and tried to speak but no sound came out. I felt my Adam's apple rising and falling but merely choked on my own saliva. If I had any, that is.

"Sonorus!"

"Severus," I watched his eyes, bloodshot, as horrible as my own. I lowered my gaze. I wasn't even at his rank, trapped inside a cellar and my hands bruised because of the punches.

"No questions," he spoke slowly, almost hissing, and put his wand back in his dark cloak.

"No!"

"Quiet!" his eyes electrified, "what is wrong with you, Lucius?"

"Your wand, no, hand it to me," it was a mutter, my voice hurt from a sudden scream.

"My wand? Excuse me. I am not allowed here with it, I need to get out of here. The Dark Lord only forced me into pitying you and came here to grant you one last favor for your services to him," his yellow teeth in sight when he enunciated each word slowly. His lips were purple, and dust flew as he tried to clean his cloak by patting on it.

"Please… Severus, I beg you."

"Begging me, now, aren't we?"

He was good at mockery.

"Why would the Dark Lord pity me?" I leaned forward, the cold metal bars coming in contact with my frozen cheeks.

"Your wife died."

I looked down, feeling the humidity consume my sanity so that everything seemed cloudy.

"Now—"

"No," my word was clear, "give me your wand. No, no," I interrupted myself, "use your wand and point it at me."

He didn't bother questioning me. That was the only good thing about Severus Snape. He only waited for me to command him like a slave.

"Kill me."

I thought that he was going to do it. He was so close. I saw his lips moving and a green spark, illuminating the prison, at the end of his wand. His eyes were focused but his lips did not move. I was horrified. Horrified that he stopped.

"No, do it."

"No," he did it again; putting his wand back and thinned his lips into a thin line. "You are still of use to the Dark Lord."

"No," I breathed again, hoping that I couldn't breathe anymore, "no I've waited all this fucking life for this moment. You cannot abandon me, you son of a bitch!"

My roar echoed through the empty cellars, awakening murmurs. I sensed the coldness coming again; the Dementors were approaching.

"Expecto Patronum!" he looked at me, "Lucius, you are becoming like one of them. You've begun to weaken."

"No! No!" I grabbed the bars, trying to pull them apart. I felt rough metal edges dig through my skin, reaching my flesh and blood. Oh the feeling. "Kill me."

A white smoke, barely visible through the dimly lighted room.

No! He was gone.

"Severus, you son of a --"

Sure the cold ground was covered by cushiony dried grass but the metal bars weren't. They came too late, too late to consume my soul. I consumed it myself, feeling the blood dripping down my forehead and temple.

I fell backwards in the bottomless pit of death; neither of the soulless ones nor of insanity.

They betrayed me.

Death betrayed me. I dreamed about death but it betrayed me.

Author's Notes: Er. Yeah. Review appreciated…