Chapter 2.
Disclaimer: See chapter 1. Also this chapter has been written with the great influence of Mario La Cruz, "GaudÃ, a novel".
Hospital Wing.
He was lying very still.
The weak autumn sun played upon the walls and the ceiling of the infirmary. The tremulous leaves of a tree were bright and whispered with the evening breeze. He thought about a magical kaleidoscope his parents. He thought about a magical kaleidoscope his parents bought him as a child. The colors of lights running and jumping in front of the toddler had delighted him. The waves like the shining glow of timid fairies playing in the lake. Golden shadows. Going back to a world of light and shadows... he slipped back to his dreams.
Everything was dark except the corner with the deadly lamp. He was faking sleep, he enjoyed the feeling of power that the simulation gave him, he has slept for days, maybe weeks. He feels as if he were flying slightly,(as if the fever had made him translucent. Next to the lamp, he could hear murmurs. The words 'Pneumonia' and 'funeral service' float to his ears. Even if they were meaningless to him, by the way they were pronounced he understands that they imply a lethal threat, part of the adult world, and he felt vaguely important. "The kid is seriously ill...he needs to rest...he is frail". He felt the absence of grandma, he missed her cold hands on his front, the soothing words that make him feel safe. Far from there someone closed a door, then he fell asleep again for an eternity.
Was he awake? Deep in the night he heard his mum quietly weeping, from so far a away that maybe it was a dream. It was a sobbing that came from Hades. Everything was dark, and he was alone. He recognized that voice and no, it wasn't a dream. The voice was too high and the shadows too deep to be a real dream and again he fall asleep. He slept more than he could imagine.
There were murmurs again, next to the door in the corner. The room was chilly and the air seemed sharp. It was early in the morning and the sun projected a golden resplendence on the wall above his head. His father's face was gray, then the words suddenly became comprehensible. The healer let his sentence drop with the full force of his professional potency. It was almost as he was delighted to say it, "I'm sad to tell you this Mr. Snape, but as with your mother, your child's situation is very extreme. He'll soon follow her, there are no possibilities for him to recover". He saw his father's head fall in helplessness and the healer hand in his shoulder. "You must accept things as they are, is all in the goddess hands".
At least is not in your hand, you foolish man. He hated that healer because he made his mum cry and kept his granny away. He also, and this was unforgivable, make his father suffer. The father was invincible, omniscient. He was the light and the darkness in Severus's life. He adored and feared his father beyond measure. Father was a force capable of the most intimate concern and despotic fury when he failed to heal his son. Severus wanted nothing to do with healers, gray faces, suffering and funerals. Once again he let himself be drawn effortlessly in the profound deadness of unconsciousness.
Day had come again, Madam Pomfrey was preaching to the poor soul in the next cubicle, and he was as bored as any creature has been since the beginnings of time, of that he was sure.
"Stop coming here girl"
"But... sore"
"... All in your mind."
A spiral of messy words going into his head "... tired", cluttered, "...drained", confused, "exhausted...." He knew about that, he has been so worn out, lost, for years. Again, lethargy caught him off guard and came untangled in his jadedness.
He was gone-- back to his origins-- to his mother's womb, touch his roots and recover in plenitude. Gone back to the shadows across the ceiling; to the shining glow of the fairies at the childhood lake
Find the origins.
Untainted energy.
Touch the roots.
As he had when grandma grabbed the roses just to show him the knotted roots. He could feel the strong smell of moist earth, the pull of Grandma strong hands. He was delighted, just as when the roots touched the water, and are so happy about it that one can feel it... Like the roots of that Willow next to the family lake. He remember eavesdropping on its dryad. Her spring leaves in the water surface, her long brown hair transform in a heavenly halo when light trespass it. Grandma said she was grieving her lover lost. She said that was why the Willow always weeps for she will never see the intensity of his eyes again.
But grandma was old, and she knew nothing about lovers, only about little grandsons. The legend was wrong, it can't be true. It says that the mournful willow leaf trembles because it was devastated. But such a beautiful lady can not suffer. How could such beauty be touch by suffering? What can be more happy than the dryad touching the water with her barefoot? Once he grew up, he would find the lady, and will love her as his grandma loved him. He would never abandon her, not as Grandma did.