A/N: I apologize for the delay in posting this chapter. My computer
erased the file about four times, and I had to start from scratch each
time.. Plus finals week. Anyway, here it is.
Chapter Eight
Light faded in and out between drifts of heavy black fog, the flickering accompanied by a deep, reverberating thump. Cold. He was cold. And stiff. Stone. He was lying on stone.
A movement of his head dulled the light and the muffled booming in his skull became almost painfully loud. His eyelids slid grittily down over his eyes and he fought to swallow past a dry, swollen tongue.
::Why am I here?::
grinding his teeth, he pushed himself up with shaking arms. Each movement of his muscles pulled and stretched the parched fiber of his limbs, and the surroundings seemed to fall away as his mind darkened and he almost passed out.
The pounding was unbearable, and he brought shaky hands up to grip his skull. His hands felt strangely weightless, as if they would float away if they loosened their grip on his hair.
A wet, cold darkness pressed in on him, but he huddled in a cocoon of dry, burning heat. The thick mist rolled back over his eyes as a weak, mewling whine wormed its way up his throat and between clenched teeth.
::I made that sound?::
He startled badly when something landed on his shoulder. A deep moan bubbled up from his gut as he slid away against the wall, its cool, rough stone scraping roughly against feverish skin.
"Snape?" The sound was almost drowned out by the pulsing rumble in his head.
::Me?::
"Snape, can you hear me?" A familiar voice, but... thick, heavy, warm, numb fog...
*********
Remus drifted uneasily in and out of an uncomfortable doze. The hard, cold stone walls of the dungeon corridor leached every bit of warmth out of his bones and confused his dreams.
He had surfaced briefly from his hazy sleep and was trying to shift into a more comfortable position when a faint sound hooked his ears. His left leg was asleep below the knee, but he managed to sit up, rubbing at his temples with cold numbed fingers and blinking in the dim dungeon light. The single torch guttered threateningly, tossing shadows against walls glistening with condensation.
He tried to shake off a feeling of disorientation. He knew there was a reason he was asleep on the floor of a dungeon corridor. The faint sound came again, and his ears turned it into the rasping of all unnamed things that shuffle through the dark. Despite himself, a sliver of ice slid wetly down his spine.
Memories were beginning to return. Snape - he had come down here to bring Snape back to his rooms, because. because he was under the influence of some narcotic. Remus felt a shiver of disgust frizzle through his nerves and a hot, heavy weight of tangled emotion sink into his stomach.
Where was Snape? It was too much to hope that he had simply woken up and gone into his rooms, since Remus had fallen asleep leaning back against the solid metal of the shield guarding Snape's quarters...
There again. The sound.
Remus scanned up and down the narrow corridor, but could see nothing except a heavy blackness beyond the dubious light of the failing torch. He pushed himself to his feet, leg still unsteady but able to support his weight, and inched along the wall. The condensation seeping from the stone soon left the hand he trailed along the wall wet.
At the wavering edge of the light cast by the dying torch, he paused and strained to puncture the darkness with his eyes. The steady movement of air through the dungeons stirred the hair on the back of his neck, and he was uncomfortably aware of the fact that it carried his scent to whatever awaited him.
It's just Snape, for Merlin's sake. Go wake him up and make him give you the password to his rooms.
Steeling himself, he crossed the almost tangible border between dark and light; almost immediately his reaching hand landed on what felt like a bony shoulder wrapped in heavy linen. He almost jumped back in surprise when it jerked violently under his hand and a low moan grated in his ear.
"Snape?"
There was a scraping, scratching sound as Snape dragged himself away from Remus. His movements released a swirl of scent and Remus inhaled deeply. Definitely Snape. Remus caught the high, buzzing scent of fever overlaying Snape's personal smell.
"Snape? Can you hear me?" No response. Where in all the hells was Dumbledore when you needed him? If only it wasn't so dark -
He felt the sudden, ridiculous urge to laugh. He was a wizard, for Merlin's sake - he had a wand. That's what sleeping on some freezing floor deep in the dungeons will do for you, he groused at himself. At least he hadn't caught a cold.
Before he could even lift his wand, though, the corridor filled with the warm light of fresh torches. He spun around. There, just in front of Snape's door, stood Dumbledore.
********* Something cool slid across his forehead, wiping the grit out of his eyes. He tried to raise a hand to brush the coldness away, but his hand was restrained. Fear released a sudden jolt of adrenaline and he sat bolt upright, eyes wide and breath coming in harsh gasps.
"Severus." The Headmaster's voice. Snape couldn't see much beyond vague blurs of light and dark, and he blinked, trying to focus. He had always had decent eyesight, except after he had...
Oh, no. No, no, no.
"I'm afraid so, my boy." Snape could feel Dumbledore poking around in his mind, and was swept away on a torrent of horrified fear - his mind was open.
"G-g-get out!" He grabbed at his hair with his hands, squeezing his eyes shut and curling inward. "Don't - no -"
"Why did you do it again, Severus?" Dumbledore's voice was infinitely sad, but Snape felt the probing in his head stop, leaving him alone in his mind with a throbbing headache.
So. Dumbledore knew about his failure. Snape felt a cringing, gnawing desire to ignore that fact.
"Do what again?" He managed to control his voice. Uncurling, he forced himself to sit upright on... his couch? Only his couch smelled like that. He turned around and buried his nose in the worn blue cushion, inhaling the familiar scent of dust and wood smoke. It had been his mother's, before...
A hand on his shoulder sent a shock of surprise through his frame, and in spite of himself he gasped, "Who's there?!"
"Severus, it's me, Albus." Snape felt the blood rise to his face. He was out of it enough that he was still making a fool of himself, but sober enough to realize it. His stomach squirmed.
"Go 'way."
"That's certainly not up to your usual standards, my boy," Dumbledore chuckled quietly. "Severus, I'm going to leave you to sleep it off. We shall discuss this further at a later time." Snape's insides shriveled with shame at the disappointment in Dumbledore's voice. .
Snape felt rather than heard Dumbledore leave, but the tightness in his gut remained. He collapsed backward, lying full length along the old blue couch. A deep horror was squeezing a band around his already throbbing head, and he resisted the urge to scream as he again buried his face in the worn blue upholstery.
His mind was hazy and confused, and he had no recollection of either purchasing or injecting the drug. The low burning beginning in his bones and the chill edging in on his limbs, though, told him all that his foggy memories couldn't.
He levered himself up off of the couch, old, half forgotten habits taking over and prompting his limbs when his brain failed to react to the situation. He dragged himself to his tiny kitchen, found the liquor cabinet by touch, yanked it open, and fumbled blindly inside for the gin bottle.
*********
Remus staggered up to his rooms at Grimmauld Place, eyes blurred with exhaustion, and collapsed onto his bed. Too tired to even think about Dumbledore's sudden entrance and the skillful way he had herded Remus out of the dungeons and back to the Black mansion, he shut his eyes against the early morning light and fell fast asleep
*********
The tingling, cloying scent of warm honey prickled his nose and he grunted, screwing his eyes shut against dazzling sunlight.
"Ah, Remus, I was wondering when you would awake. I took the liberty of ordering us some tea: I hope you don't mind too terribly." It was Dumbledore, sounding overly cheerful. Always a bad sign.
Remus stretched tight muscles and crammed his head underneath his pillow. He had a hollow pit in his chest, an almost hunger for more sleep. "Wha' time's it?" The pillow muffled Remus' voice, but Dumbledore responded brightly nonetheless.
"It is currently ten o'clock, I believe. I've spoken with Raksha Mahu, and she'll be expecting you tomorrow instead of today. Minerva tells me you've had a long night."
"Oh." Remus' brain tended to be a little sluggish for a while after he woke up, and he was trying to remember why he had had a 'late night.' Climbing out from under his pillow, he ran a hand through his graying hair and blinked slowly at he Headmaster. "Oh."
Dumbledore looked down at the silver tea service, stirring the tea in the teapot with a delicate porcelain spoon. His plum robes seemed to hang on his ancient frame, and the hand stirring the tea trembled slightly. "Thank you for watching Severus, Remus."
Remus, whose brain had finally shifted into gear, felt frustrated anger bubble past his exhaustion-weakened control. "How could you. did you know about this?!" He paused and forced himself to take a calming breath. "I'm sorry, Albus, I'm not at my best in the morning."
"I understand, Remus. It's been a trying couple of weeks since the summer holidays began, hasn't it? And I had always thought that holidays were for relaxation and leisure." A faint smile tugged at the old wizard's face.
Remus reached for the teapot and poured tea into two of the eggshell- thin bone china cups. "So... you knew about this." Remus didn't really know why he was surprised. Dumbledore knew everything. "What..." He glanced away from the tea, turning his cup absently in his hands, trying to sort out his thoughts. "What are we going to do?"
"That is the question, isn't it?" Dumbledore sipped at his tea, the steam fogging his half moon glasses. "To put it baldly, Severus is under incredible stress, and like most of us, he is falling back on old habits and ways of dealing with it."
Remus had an unsettling image of a young Snape sneaking out of the Slytherin dorms and shooting up on heroin in the boy's washroom. He cleared his throat. "How long has this been going on?"
"Too long." Dumbledore put down his cup. "After Voldemort fell from power and Severus' active service as a spy was no longer required, he managed to break his dependence on heroin with only a few relapses. That was fourteen years ago."
"So you're saying that going back to Voldemort is the cause of all this?" Remus tried. He felt strangely disconnected, as if he were dreaming it all up, a nightmare caused by anxiety and exhaustion. This can't really be happening, he thought.
"I wish it were that simple." He sighed and leaned back in his chair, face grave. "Severus is a very lonely person -"
"That doesn't excuse his, his drug use!" Remus surprised himself with his own outburst, but found that he couldn't stop. "You say 'he's so lonely,' but he alienates himself. He can barely say a full sentence without saying something nasty to someone, without belittling them."
Remus found himself pacing his small room waving his arms, but he couldn't hold it in. "He kicked me out of Hogwarts! He told his students about me! I never did anything to him, but he ::still:: told them."
The bitterness churning through his chest left him shaky. He hadn't realized how much Snape's betrayal had meant to him until he had said it out loud. "That - that hurt a lot. I - and now this." He slumped back down into his chair, passing a trembling hand over his exhausted face. "Will I ever be able to just live peacefully?" A faint guilt began to gather in his throat and he chuckled mirthlessly. "That sounded truly self centered, didn't it?"
"I do not think so, Remus. You often care far more for others than for yourself, and we all need to look after ourselves as well as after our friends." The words were soft and slightly crinkled, like old, dried parchment.
Dumbledore didn't seem at all surprised by Remus' outburst, and Remus felt a soothing relief cool his guilt as the ancient wizard regarded him with wize old eyes. Remus had just begun to relax when Dumbledore spoke again.
"However, my old friend, I fear that I must ask for your help yet again. Severus is in an extremely dangerous, yet critical, position, and we desperately need him to remain functional. His addiction runs deep in both his body and mind, and as long as the two share a space, true healing is nearly impossible."
Remus was stunned. "Are you asking me to do what I think you're asking me to do?!"
Chapter Eight
Light faded in and out between drifts of heavy black fog, the flickering accompanied by a deep, reverberating thump. Cold. He was cold. And stiff. Stone. He was lying on stone.
A movement of his head dulled the light and the muffled booming in his skull became almost painfully loud. His eyelids slid grittily down over his eyes and he fought to swallow past a dry, swollen tongue.
::Why am I here?::
grinding his teeth, he pushed himself up with shaking arms. Each movement of his muscles pulled and stretched the parched fiber of his limbs, and the surroundings seemed to fall away as his mind darkened and he almost passed out.
The pounding was unbearable, and he brought shaky hands up to grip his skull. His hands felt strangely weightless, as if they would float away if they loosened their grip on his hair.
A wet, cold darkness pressed in on him, but he huddled in a cocoon of dry, burning heat. The thick mist rolled back over his eyes as a weak, mewling whine wormed its way up his throat and between clenched teeth.
::I made that sound?::
He startled badly when something landed on his shoulder. A deep moan bubbled up from his gut as he slid away against the wall, its cool, rough stone scraping roughly against feverish skin.
"Snape?" The sound was almost drowned out by the pulsing rumble in his head.
::Me?::
"Snape, can you hear me?" A familiar voice, but... thick, heavy, warm, numb fog...
*********
Remus drifted uneasily in and out of an uncomfortable doze. The hard, cold stone walls of the dungeon corridor leached every bit of warmth out of his bones and confused his dreams.
He had surfaced briefly from his hazy sleep and was trying to shift into a more comfortable position when a faint sound hooked his ears. His left leg was asleep below the knee, but he managed to sit up, rubbing at his temples with cold numbed fingers and blinking in the dim dungeon light. The single torch guttered threateningly, tossing shadows against walls glistening with condensation.
He tried to shake off a feeling of disorientation. He knew there was a reason he was asleep on the floor of a dungeon corridor. The faint sound came again, and his ears turned it into the rasping of all unnamed things that shuffle through the dark. Despite himself, a sliver of ice slid wetly down his spine.
Memories were beginning to return. Snape - he had come down here to bring Snape back to his rooms, because. because he was under the influence of some narcotic. Remus felt a shiver of disgust frizzle through his nerves and a hot, heavy weight of tangled emotion sink into his stomach.
Where was Snape? It was too much to hope that he had simply woken up and gone into his rooms, since Remus had fallen asleep leaning back against the solid metal of the shield guarding Snape's quarters...
There again. The sound.
Remus scanned up and down the narrow corridor, but could see nothing except a heavy blackness beyond the dubious light of the failing torch. He pushed himself to his feet, leg still unsteady but able to support his weight, and inched along the wall. The condensation seeping from the stone soon left the hand he trailed along the wall wet.
At the wavering edge of the light cast by the dying torch, he paused and strained to puncture the darkness with his eyes. The steady movement of air through the dungeons stirred the hair on the back of his neck, and he was uncomfortably aware of the fact that it carried his scent to whatever awaited him.
It's just Snape, for Merlin's sake. Go wake him up and make him give you the password to his rooms.
Steeling himself, he crossed the almost tangible border between dark and light; almost immediately his reaching hand landed on what felt like a bony shoulder wrapped in heavy linen. He almost jumped back in surprise when it jerked violently under his hand and a low moan grated in his ear.
"Snape?"
There was a scraping, scratching sound as Snape dragged himself away from Remus. His movements released a swirl of scent and Remus inhaled deeply. Definitely Snape. Remus caught the high, buzzing scent of fever overlaying Snape's personal smell.
"Snape? Can you hear me?" No response. Where in all the hells was Dumbledore when you needed him? If only it wasn't so dark -
He felt the sudden, ridiculous urge to laugh. He was a wizard, for Merlin's sake - he had a wand. That's what sleeping on some freezing floor deep in the dungeons will do for you, he groused at himself. At least he hadn't caught a cold.
Before he could even lift his wand, though, the corridor filled with the warm light of fresh torches. He spun around. There, just in front of Snape's door, stood Dumbledore.
********* Something cool slid across his forehead, wiping the grit out of his eyes. He tried to raise a hand to brush the coldness away, but his hand was restrained. Fear released a sudden jolt of adrenaline and he sat bolt upright, eyes wide and breath coming in harsh gasps.
"Severus." The Headmaster's voice. Snape couldn't see much beyond vague blurs of light and dark, and he blinked, trying to focus. He had always had decent eyesight, except after he had...
Oh, no. No, no, no.
"I'm afraid so, my boy." Snape could feel Dumbledore poking around in his mind, and was swept away on a torrent of horrified fear - his mind was open.
"G-g-get out!" He grabbed at his hair with his hands, squeezing his eyes shut and curling inward. "Don't - no -"
"Why did you do it again, Severus?" Dumbledore's voice was infinitely sad, but Snape felt the probing in his head stop, leaving him alone in his mind with a throbbing headache.
So. Dumbledore knew about his failure. Snape felt a cringing, gnawing desire to ignore that fact.
"Do what again?" He managed to control his voice. Uncurling, he forced himself to sit upright on... his couch? Only his couch smelled like that. He turned around and buried his nose in the worn blue cushion, inhaling the familiar scent of dust and wood smoke. It had been his mother's, before...
A hand on his shoulder sent a shock of surprise through his frame, and in spite of himself he gasped, "Who's there?!"
"Severus, it's me, Albus." Snape felt the blood rise to his face. He was out of it enough that he was still making a fool of himself, but sober enough to realize it. His stomach squirmed.
"Go 'way."
"That's certainly not up to your usual standards, my boy," Dumbledore chuckled quietly. "Severus, I'm going to leave you to sleep it off. We shall discuss this further at a later time." Snape's insides shriveled with shame at the disappointment in Dumbledore's voice. .
Snape felt rather than heard Dumbledore leave, but the tightness in his gut remained. He collapsed backward, lying full length along the old blue couch. A deep horror was squeezing a band around his already throbbing head, and he resisted the urge to scream as he again buried his face in the worn blue upholstery.
His mind was hazy and confused, and he had no recollection of either purchasing or injecting the drug. The low burning beginning in his bones and the chill edging in on his limbs, though, told him all that his foggy memories couldn't.
He levered himself up off of the couch, old, half forgotten habits taking over and prompting his limbs when his brain failed to react to the situation. He dragged himself to his tiny kitchen, found the liquor cabinet by touch, yanked it open, and fumbled blindly inside for the gin bottle.
*********
Remus staggered up to his rooms at Grimmauld Place, eyes blurred with exhaustion, and collapsed onto his bed. Too tired to even think about Dumbledore's sudden entrance and the skillful way he had herded Remus out of the dungeons and back to the Black mansion, he shut his eyes against the early morning light and fell fast asleep
*********
The tingling, cloying scent of warm honey prickled his nose and he grunted, screwing his eyes shut against dazzling sunlight.
"Ah, Remus, I was wondering when you would awake. I took the liberty of ordering us some tea: I hope you don't mind too terribly." It was Dumbledore, sounding overly cheerful. Always a bad sign.
Remus stretched tight muscles and crammed his head underneath his pillow. He had a hollow pit in his chest, an almost hunger for more sleep. "Wha' time's it?" The pillow muffled Remus' voice, but Dumbledore responded brightly nonetheless.
"It is currently ten o'clock, I believe. I've spoken with Raksha Mahu, and she'll be expecting you tomorrow instead of today. Minerva tells me you've had a long night."
"Oh." Remus' brain tended to be a little sluggish for a while after he woke up, and he was trying to remember why he had had a 'late night.' Climbing out from under his pillow, he ran a hand through his graying hair and blinked slowly at he Headmaster. "Oh."
Dumbledore looked down at the silver tea service, stirring the tea in the teapot with a delicate porcelain spoon. His plum robes seemed to hang on his ancient frame, and the hand stirring the tea trembled slightly. "Thank you for watching Severus, Remus."
Remus, whose brain had finally shifted into gear, felt frustrated anger bubble past his exhaustion-weakened control. "How could you. did you know about this?!" He paused and forced himself to take a calming breath. "I'm sorry, Albus, I'm not at my best in the morning."
"I understand, Remus. It's been a trying couple of weeks since the summer holidays began, hasn't it? And I had always thought that holidays were for relaxation and leisure." A faint smile tugged at the old wizard's face.
Remus reached for the teapot and poured tea into two of the eggshell- thin bone china cups. "So... you knew about this." Remus didn't really know why he was surprised. Dumbledore knew everything. "What..." He glanced away from the tea, turning his cup absently in his hands, trying to sort out his thoughts. "What are we going to do?"
"That is the question, isn't it?" Dumbledore sipped at his tea, the steam fogging his half moon glasses. "To put it baldly, Severus is under incredible stress, and like most of us, he is falling back on old habits and ways of dealing with it."
Remus had an unsettling image of a young Snape sneaking out of the Slytherin dorms and shooting up on heroin in the boy's washroom. He cleared his throat. "How long has this been going on?"
"Too long." Dumbledore put down his cup. "After Voldemort fell from power and Severus' active service as a spy was no longer required, he managed to break his dependence on heroin with only a few relapses. That was fourteen years ago."
"So you're saying that going back to Voldemort is the cause of all this?" Remus tried. He felt strangely disconnected, as if he were dreaming it all up, a nightmare caused by anxiety and exhaustion. This can't really be happening, he thought.
"I wish it were that simple." He sighed and leaned back in his chair, face grave. "Severus is a very lonely person -"
"That doesn't excuse his, his drug use!" Remus surprised himself with his own outburst, but found that he couldn't stop. "You say 'he's so lonely,' but he alienates himself. He can barely say a full sentence without saying something nasty to someone, without belittling them."
Remus found himself pacing his small room waving his arms, but he couldn't hold it in. "He kicked me out of Hogwarts! He told his students about me! I never did anything to him, but he ::still:: told them."
The bitterness churning through his chest left him shaky. He hadn't realized how much Snape's betrayal had meant to him until he had said it out loud. "That - that hurt a lot. I - and now this." He slumped back down into his chair, passing a trembling hand over his exhausted face. "Will I ever be able to just live peacefully?" A faint guilt began to gather in his throat and he chuckled mirthlessly. "That sounded truly self centered, didn't it?"
"I do not think so, Remus. You often care far more for others than for yourself, and we all need to look after ourselves as well as after our friends." The words were soft and slightly crinkled, like old, dried parchment.
Dumbledore didn't seem at all surprised by Remus' outburst, and Remus felt a soothing relief cool his guilt as the ancient wizard regarded him with wize old eyes. Remus had just begun to relax when Dumbledore spoke again.
"However, my old friend, I fear that I must ask for your help yet again. Severus is in an extremely dangerous, yet critical, position, and we desperately need him to remain functional. His addiction runs deep in both his body and mind, and as long as the two share a space, true healing is nearly impossible."
Remus was stunned. "Are you asking me to do what I think you're asking me to do?!"