This Dream From Which We'll Wake And Go
Verse IV of the J. Alfred Prufrock Arc
- Vain
7.15 - 27.2003
Standard Disclaimer: I own nothing except the plot. Harry Potter and all the elements therein are the intellectual property / registered trademarks of JK Rowling, Scholastic Books, and Warner Brothers. I am not profiting from this.
Warnings: SS/HP pre-slash.
Continuity: This is the sequel to Behind These Cold Eyes and is Verse 4 in the apparently never ending J. Alfred Prufrock Arch.
Notes: Both quotes are Harry's.
This story was originally launched under my secondary pen name, "Hanakai." For convenience's sake, I have decided to streamline my fics under my original pen name, Vain. SAME AUTHOR. SAME STORY. DIFFERENT NAME. As a fic is re-uploaded under my Vain pen name, I will delete it from my Hanakai profile. Eventually, Hanakai will be deleted entirely, so please update your faves and bookmarks to reflect this.
Thank you for all your previous reviews—I saved them all—and I hope you all review again. I'm greedy.
For progress notes on the pen name transition or if you have any questions, please see my Livejournal (linked both my profiles). I hope this doesn't inconvenience anyone & thank you for your patience.
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"Life is a dream—that knows no shade.
Life is a dream—of pain and woe.
A dream from which—we pray to wake.
A dream from which—we wake and go.
"Who would sleep—when the new dawn waits?
Who would sleep—when the sweet winds blow?
A dream must end—when the new day comes.
This dream from which—we wake and go."
Aiel Funeral Dirge
- Robert Jordan
A Crown of Swords
I pause, teapot frozen in midair in my right hand, feeling ridiculously guilty for a moment. As though I've been caught doing something wrong. Which I haven't, of course—last time I checked, insomnia was perfectly legal—but the feeling persists. A small black bag, my own special blend of tea leaves and herbs, hits his frail chest instead of landing on the table I'd thrown it at and he blinks at me owlishly from behind his glasses. The yellowish light in the kitchen shines down on him, making his shadow stretch out too far behind him and unattractively accentuating his pale skin and the darkened hollows of his cheeks and eyes. He looks skeletal. Emaciated.
I turn back to the stove and set the teapot down on the burner with a careful, controlled motion, curse myself silently. It's been a very, very long time since I was last caught unaware and this house makes me a good deal jumpier than most other places. I'm not at all in proper form lately. I was a fool to allow Albus to coerce me into remaining here for the next five days. I should have flooed to Hogwarts as soon as the meeting adjourned.
But that would have left him all alone. Alone.
The Black household has never been any place for children, even a child as remarkable as Harry Potter.
I can feel his presence in the doorway of the kitchen; hear him breathing my air, invading my space . . . Technically, though, I suppose that it's actually his space now. Black left him everything from the mansion to the titles to the very last knut in the Black Family Vault. Potter was named the sole beneficiary of the estate at the beginning of June, though Merlin only knows what legal hoops Albus had to jump through to accomplish that particular bit of wizardry. Narcissa Malfoy was reportedly furious.
The thought amuses me more than it probably should.
"Do you plan on standing there all night, Mr. Potter, or did you actually want something?"
There's a sharp intake of breath behind me, a small, pained noise. I didn't mean for my voice to come out like that. So . . . cruel . . . But it did anyway. I repress a sigh and light the burner beneath the teapot.
Wonderful. I've only been alone with the boy for five hours and I can already feel a migraine coming on.
Curse Lupin anyway. He should be here, not me, and the full moon be damned. Potter has made it fairly obvious that he wants nothing to do with me and if I had a single grain of common sense, I'd count my blessings and put as much space between myself and the boy as humanly possible. I hear Japan is lovely this time of year . . .
If I had a single grain of common sense.
I feel almost giddy at the thought—far, far, far too amused. I need to get sleep, but I have a better chance of teaching Granger's monstrosity of cat to sing "The Lass of Glenshee" than of getting a decent night of sleep in this house.
For a moment he says nothing, but then the soft smack of bare feet sounds across the cracked linoleum. My mouth tightens.
The bag I had thrown at the table as he walked in is set silently on the counter next to my right arm and Potter turns around, obviously preparing to leave again. My mouth opens before I can stop myself. "Trouble sleeping?"
The boy pauses in the doorway again, but I firmly resist the urge to turn around and look at him. Last week when Moody returned to headquarters with Potter in tow, the boy had had a vague, apathetic look about him: too pale, too thin, too washed-out looking. It wasn't natural. Albus immediately closeted himself away with boy and the paranoid one-eyed coot before anyone could say a word, only to emerge five minutes later with that damnable twinkle and announce that Potter would stay here until the beginning of the term.
Naturally, he offered no explanation.
"Dreams," Potter mutters almost inaudibly, interrupting my thoughts. "Sir."
I ignore the carelessly tacked on honorific and frown at the teakettle, willing it to reach a boil and give me an excuse to end this conversation. "I thought the Headmaster had resumed your Occlumency lessons . . .?"
"He did, sir."
Boil, damn you.
My mouth moves, apparently now completely independent of the rest of my body. Observe the wonders of fatigue in action. "Are they not helping?" Not that it's my business to care if they're helping. "Perhaps you are not applying yourself. Certainly the Headmaster's training can meet your vaunted Potter standards where mine was found lacking. He is only one of the most qualified wizards on the planet, let alone in the whole of Europe. Surely he can motivate you, Mr. Potter?"
Where I could not.
The thought is petulant and frustrated and for a brief moment I wonder if somehow that came through in my inflection.
Maddeningly, the teakettle refuses to whistle.
I regret the cruel words on a distant, clinical level—the way one regrets the shrill squeals a lobster makes when being boiled alive. But I'm too tired to pity him. Twelve Death Eater meetings the past twelve nights in a row, each time the Dark Lord more angry at me than the last. An angry Lord Voldemort is not conducive to restful sleep—provided that I manage to get to sleep at all. And now nearly a week of my summer locked up in this accursed architectural atrocity with the Golden Boy of Gryffindor. I close my eyes briefly. Pepper-Up potions only go so far and the resulting "crash" after extended use is intensely unpleasant.
Weariness drags at me like shackles, drawing me down and binding me to this place. My left hand aches fiercely from Voldemort's "punishment" two weeks ago. Poppy fixed it up easily—all the while shooting Albus nasty looks and muttering under her breath—but she told me that it may hurt on occasion and that I'd now be much more susceptible to rheumatism there. The news pained me to no small extreme; my hands are my livelihood and one my few physical features that I regard with any sort of pride.
Potter does not respond to my insults and after a moment I hear his footfalls head into the adjacent dining room.
I glare at the teapot.
And there's yet another thing to worry over; the more time I spend around Potter, the more I worry. It was only obvious that Black's death would affect him negatively, but I had never expected anything like this. I occasionally recall the last day of last term when we were out at the lake with shudders of both shame and horror. Shame for allowing myself such an indiscretion and horror at what my foolish slip of emotion may eventually cost me.
Potter's hardly brilliant in the academic sense of the word, but he's not dumb either, and he has an intensely disconcerting way of storing up seemingly random information for extended periods of time, only to put it all together to form a cogent—and usually previously unnoticed—pattern at the most inconvenient times. I have no desire to attempt to rouse him from his malaise in my current state. This level of sleep deprivation makes me sloppy and I am in absolutely no mood for the mental gymnastics that Potter always manages to force me through.
The teakettle whistles shrilly, demanding that I acknowledge it. Perhaps I should have warmed some milk instead. Somehow I don't know if I should trust myself with tea tonight. There's a slight hiss as the herbs hit the water, immediately followed by the scent of peaches. That would be from the ground up peach pits, I recall vaguely. I stare into the teapot for a moment. This particular mix is something that I came up with last year to get me to sleep after those damnable Occlumency lessons. It's a fairly strong mix—not something I'd stock in the infirmary. Particularly since it has several ingredients in common with veritiserum and it can be highly toxic if too much is taken at once. Not to mention that those who do not drink it carefully are then prone to babbling whatever weighs on their soul at the moment. They don't spout out endlessly verbose streams of secrets; the mix is not as potent as veritiserum. But they are a good deal more prone to saying what they truly think. Normally, though, that's not even an issue as the side affects don't have time to activate before the sleeping additives do. I close the pot up again and raise the flame a bit higher to medium. The bag vanishes into one of the pockets in my robe. I eye the now silent pot in irritation for a moment. A small stream of steam rises lazily from the mouth of the kettle's spout.
I imagine I can hear the boy fidgeting in the dining room.
This is absolutely ridiculous.
I push myself away from the stove and head to the doorway. My steps feel unnaturally slow. This is absolutely ridiculous! I am not afraid of a fifteen year old boy, regardless of what his damn eyes look like, or how green they are!
I am not—
"Do you plan on standing there all night, Professor Snape, or did you actually want something?"
Infuriating whelp!
I can just see it now: "So sorry, Albus. The boy asked me a question and I just snapped. Don't worry though, once we find all the bits and pieces, I'm sure that Poppy will be able to fix the boy up. In the meanwhile, my resignation will be on your desk come morning.
Oh, yes. That would be simply smashing.
I swirl my way over to the table menacingly and glare at the top of the boy's head in frustration. My visual persona is useless when the object of my attention is far more interested in frowning at his knobby red knuckles rather than being intimidated. The brat.
I sit down in the chair opposite him and stare fixedly at where his eyes would be if he looked up. After several moments of silence I clear my throat and say in a bland, disinterested voice, "In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo."
His head snaps up and he blinks in stunned confusion, large, round eyes wide. Their now typical kicked puppy look has been replaced by bewilderment and I feel a distinct surge of satisfaction.
"What?"
The pot whistles again and I stand, ignoring his question in favor of the tea. The scent of chamomile and peaches greets my nose as I enter the kitchen and I remove the kettle from the burner. Potter is still sitting at the table when I return with the teapot, a strainer, and two teacups and saucers. I set one of the cups on the saucers and place it on the table in front of him. I do the same for myself and then pour us each a cup of tea, straining the leaves through the strainer as I pour.
He's small. A half a cup will be more than enough. More than that would probably put him into a barbiturate coma. While I see only sunny optimism in that future, I'm sure Albus would disagree.
Once I've finished, I reclaim the chair across from him. "It is from a poem, Mr. Potter. A muggle poem, to be precise. Not that I'd expect anything of any culture or sophistication to stick in that Gryffindor brain—or rather the lack thereof."
It takes him a moment to process the insult. When he seems to understand what I've said, instead of insulting me he frowns at his hands again. I scowl, disappointed by his unresponsiveness to my prodding, and wrap my long fingers around my teacup.
"You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, Severus."
Shut up and leave me to my shortcomings, Albus.
Potter stares into his teacup blankly. I pointedly ignore his unspoken question and take a deep swallow of my tea; it scalds my tongue painfully and burns my throat on the way down.
The boy swirls the amber liquid in his cup, still refusing to meet my gaze. "What are you doing still up?" he demands suddenly.
Talking of Michelangelo.
I bite the tip of my tongue to keep back the words and instead reward his query with an expression of the utmost contempt. He doesn't see it. I loathe this child. "Making tea."
". . . Oh . . ."
The silence is heavy and awkward and for a moment my resolve not to be frightened away by a boy wavers dangerously. My teacup clinks heavily into its saucer and I frown at it, wondering impatiently when the brew will take affect.
I wonder if Molly thought to leave a few scones behind . . .
"I'msorry."
The words stumble out of his mouth rapidly, falling on my ears in a disorganized jumble that takes a moment to untangle. I look over at him curiously, but he's still staring into his untouched teacup. His shoulders are hunched almost painfully, giving the impression that he's trying to sink into his seat and vanish.
I take a measured, controlled sip of tea. He shifts unhappily.
"Sorry?" It's more of an effort than perhaps it should be to keep malice out of my voice. "Whatever for?"
For being? For being you? For invading my privacy? For invading my life? For having eyes that earnestly green or such an impatient mouth? For being so proud? So arrogant? So stupid? So hopelessly Potter?
The possibilities are endless.
He hunches over more, as though it were possible, and through the parted crows nest of his hair I can see that his face is pale and his cheeks are bright cherry red with . . . mortification . . .?
He suddenly looks disturbingly attractive.
I take a quick swallow of tea, almost choking on it and slightly disappointed when I don't.
"That day . . . by the lake . . ." His mouth works silently for a moment as he continues to stare downward, unaware that I feel as though my very breath hangs on his next word.
I clutch my teacup tightly and will the stupid boy to shut up.
He suddenly picks up his tea with startling determination, sloshing some of it over the edge carelessly, and downs the whole thing as though the beverage could fortify him for whatever he's preparing to say. Some of it spills, small trickles running down his chin onto his nightclothes. It occurs to me that he really, really probably should not have done that. Green eyes rise to spear me, looking almost ridiculous in their earnestness, and I have a sudden overpowering urge to flee, dignity be hanged.
"I didn't mean—I mean, I meant . . ." he babbles breathlessly, leaning forward over table. A single amber drop of the potion hangs precariously his chin. He's all adolescent awkwardness and desperation and I feel oddly lightheaded. I tell myself that it's the tea.
He falters again charmingly at my impassivity and for a strange moment it seems as though the teacup swells in my hand. There is resistance, and then . . .
He leaps to his feet, hitting table and sending his tea everywhere in the process, at the exact moment I register a dull popping noise and the sharp pain in the palm of my left hand. "Sir!"
I look away from bright green eye to stare numbly at the shards of my teacup as hot fluid drips steadily off the table and onto my robes. A small shard of white porcelain is imbedded in my left palm and a surprisingly liberal flow of blood mingles with the spilled tea.
Potter is moving towards me. Blathering about blood and hands and something else, but I can't seem to focus on him. I stare at the blood and remember that exact same shade of red. Reflected off the rippling waters of the lake.
"Potter—"
"Don't call me that."
". . . Potter . . . Potter . . . Harry."
My hand aches horribly.
And then he touches me. "Let me see."
Before I can think to lurch away or give voice to the scream that's somehow worked his way into my throat, soft hands grip my wounded hand and pull it towards a pale, youthful face marred by an alarming mix of exhaustion, fear, and consternation.
Soft hands. Smooth skin broken only by one or two fleshy calluses forged by long hours of Quidditch. Warm hands. Pale, unstained skin—
"Let me go." I sound hoarse and panicked—not at all like myself. I can feel the horrible warmth of a flush crawling up my neck.
He ignores me and gently pulls the teacup sliver from my skin. I don't feel it.
"I hate you! You're the spy. You could have known! Should have known! They died because of you!"
"Harry, stop!"
"It should have been you!"
I close my eyes, unsure whether I'm trying to banish the memories, or the sight of him stand over me and looking so bloody . . . concerned.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I—
"Harry, stop."
Is that weak and rusted sound truly my voice?
"It should have been you!"
The boy doesn't seem to hear me. "I just—I mean, I saw . . . that night . . . I saw what he did to you and it wasn't right and I didn't want to want anyone to hurt like that—not even you—and I kept hearing you in my head—I mean, remembering what you told me—"
"Potter."
He stops and freezes, still cradling my injured hand to him as though it were something of consequence. His grip tightens. He does not look up.
Harry. "Let me go." Let me go.
Small fingers twitch open weakly and my hand seems to drop into my lap of its own accord. I want to slap him. Slap him or—
"What do you want from me?" I feel as though a stranger is using my mouth and so I try to look away, but I can't. Everything seems disconnected, as though I'm experiencing the world through a thin layer of gauze. He bites his lower lip hard for an instant before worrying the pale sliver of flesh between small, sharp teeth.
I finally turn away, feeling obscenely voyeuristic.
"I . . ." He trails off pathetically and I can almost hear the little gears in his head whirring as he attempts to find the answer to my question. Then we both realize the truth and he suddenly looks so hopelessly miserable that I feel nauseous. "I . . . don't know, sir."
For some reason I ache to hold him. Instead I run my right ring finger over one of the larger pieces of my crushed teacup. My robes are soaked with spilt blood and tea and my left hand throbs dully, barely something worth noting.
Go away, boy. Go away and leave me to my aching misery and my old wounds and my bitter, twisted imaginings.
"I'm sorry," he whispers again.
I explode. "Stop being so bloody sorry, boy!"
I can't contain the roar that tears from my throat and my body rises, knocking my chair over, and twisting to loom over him menacingly. A part of me wants to stop. A part of me want to beat his pretty head into the wall until the blood runs down the old paint, staining it a marvelous red, and those horribly green eyes of his still, their accursed fire quenched, never to scorch me again. I refuse to acknowledge what any other parts of me may want.
Perhaps a bit of my desperate, exhausted madness is showing in my eyes. I can feel tiny flecks of spittle land on my cheeks and I'm trembling wildly. Whatever the case, his eyes go wide and he backs away, not quite cringing, but not quite standing, either.
"Sorry never fixed anything, Potter. Sorry never erased the memory of a wrong. Sorry never healed a broken mind, or soothed a vengeful spirit! Sorry will never erase the blood on your hands or on mine! Sorry will never bring back your parents, or Diggory, or Black! Your sorrys are useless on me! Go drown yourself in them and happily leave me in peace, or, if you cannot do that, then at least have the courtesy to sit quietly and choke on them. But don't throw them at me." My voice—yes, that noise is indeed my voice—drops to a cruel hiss. "The damned are the damned, Potter and sorrys will neither save them nor save their victims. Sorrys are useless, as are the people who hide behind them."
"I—" He bumps into a wall.
I continue moving forward. "Whatever you think you saw, whatever you think you've learned, Mr. Potter, I suggest you forget! I know what I am, so spare your pathetic psuedo-understanding and your broke down philosophies. I neither need, nor want, nor deserve your compassion or your sorrys!" The word sounds vile coming out of my mouth. I swallow around it and taste bile. "Everything you've heard, every whisper in the hall and rumor slipped beneath the doors about me is true. All that and more. Does that satiate your damnable curiosity? Is that what you want to hear? All you need to know is that I am the sum and total of those scribbled notes bitten off words, and run-on sentences. People are only what the world makes of them, Potter, and the sooner you learn that, the better off you'll be!" I stop no more than eight inches in front of him, choking on my own impotent, depthless, rage.
He watches me for a few moments, our panting breaths mingling in the silence of the Manor. Eventually, he looks up at me and his eyes are eerily lucid. I wipe futilely at my mouth, trying to clean the spittle off my face. I feel naked and unbalanced under those eyes.
He pushes himself off the wall and looks at me loosely, lips slightly pursed. "Then I'd be six feet tall, richer than Malfoy, smarter than 'Mione, more powerful than Dumbledore, spoiled rotten, a murder, a liar, a madman, a fool, a hero, the greatest Seeker in the world, and either the next Head Boy or the next Voldemort."
I wince involuntarily at the name, but don't look away from his eyes. "Then perhaps you are." I turn away from him, mindnumblingly tired, and stumble gracelessly back to my seat. I pick of the chair and slump into it bonelessly, to hell with dignity. By this point in time, it's a futile effort anyway.
He watches me. "I'm not," he whispers quietly. I wish he would shut up.
"I'm not," he repeats in a stronger voice. I close my eyes tiredly as he continues: "There's more to me than that, and less." His voice is smooth and even.
I relax into it. "Perhaps there is, Mr.—"
"Don't call me that."
I feel a muscle in my right cheek tick. ". . . Perhaps there is, Harry," I know there is, "but who will care? Your friends? The Headmaster? The lovely Miss Chang? The Dark Lord . . .?"
Me . . . Me . . . Me . . . Me . . .
I make no effort to silence the treacherous voice within me.
"I don't know . . ." He comes over to me and looks down at me with an expression i can't place. "Someone."
Me . . . Me . . . Me . . . Me . . .
I look away. What are doing to me, boy? What have you done to me? "And what will that gain you?" I find myself playing with jagged shards of porcelain again.
"I don't know . . ."
"What do you want it to gain you . . .? Do you even know what you want anymore, Harry?" Harry . . .
He's silent for a long moment. I turn back to see him frowning at the floor, his forehead creased with worry and trepidation. He looks too old. Too old by far.
My poor, poor Harry . . . My poor Gryffindor . . .
"Harry?" And my voice is gentler than I ever thought it could be. I revel in the sound of it.
The boy's head snaps up and he tenses suddenly, looking as though he's about to attack me. "I want . . . I want . . . I want TIME! I want to just—I want them all to leave me alone! I don't want anyone else to die! I don't want to die! Not like that. Not like . . ."
I stare at him for a moment, rendered dumb by the horrible, horrible pain in his voice. My poor boy . . . It's not pity I feel for him; it's pain. Raw unadulterated pain. As those words poured from his mouth, I knew that I would burn the world and use my soul for tinder if only I could see him safely through all this. If only I could ease his sorrow. But I cannot.
My poor Harry.
I move before I quite know what I'm doing, long arms wrapping around that narrow waist and pulling him down into my lap, holding him close, holding him tight.
My Harry. My Harry.
He curls into me marvelously well, fitting into all the hollows I never knew I had. His head lies comfortably on my weak chest and he pulls himself into a tight ball next to me instead of pulling away like I thought he would. Like I know he should.
"I don't want to die."
". . . Then don't," I whisper into his hair. He smells like grass and juniper.
Don't die. Don't leave me. Don't—Don't . . . Don't go . . . "Don't."
He trembles in my arms, trying so hard not to cry that I wonder why he doesn't cry out from that effort alone. I hold him close and curse myself, knowing that this is the only respite I can offer him. He clutches at my sleeves and I resolve not to let him go. Not to let him fade.
Not to let him die.
I will not relinquish what is mine. And this—what he's given me here and now—is mine. Mine.
And the rest of the world can rot.
Do I dare disturb the Universe? Will I receive that fateful moment when everything can be revisited, revised, reversed, tested, and made right again? Or perhaps I have already missed it.
He trembles beautifully in my arms and I long to crush him into me, to hear him gasp in shocked pain and feel those marvelously fragile ribs crack against me. Pop and break and tear and rip through the living fabric of his skin. Because I don't think that I can bear to watch him suffer like this. Not if it's only to die. To burn in a flash, leaving only a mild sense of heat and burnt retinas in his wake. It's not fair. Not to him, not to me, not to anyone. I wrap my arms a bit more securely around him, but my body is wiser than I and I can hold him no tighter.
His breath smells like chamomile and peaches. I inhale deeply and feel him relax against me as the tea finally takes affect and he sinks into a reluctant, unquiet slumber.
Soon I will have to stand and carry him up to his rooms. Soon I will have to pour myself another cup of tea and sit alone in the silence of Black Manor. Soon morning will come with it's full, obnoxiously vibrant force and I will have to face green eyes, and a mouth that doesn't smile quite like that of a normal boy, and the small, uncomfortable yet gracefully shuffling movements of a stumbling, brash, clumsy adolescent boy that I can no longer force myself to see quite as a stumbling, brash, clumsy adolescent boy. And soon I will have to figure out exactly what I do see him as, before he comes to conclusions that I am too afraid to face.
Soon.
But—for now—I will simply sit here and hold him tight, quietly disturbing the Universe in my own tired way.
"Wide awake on an ocean of silence
Wide awake in soft lullabies
Linen shadows floating through open sashes
All in the touch of mother's eyes.
Hold me, a child in your arms,
Hold me, please hold me.
Water marked sky of tears that I cried is floating so high
All in the touch of a mother's eyes
Stung by the salt of weeping skies
Cheek to cheek with last goodbyes."
Jump, Little Children
Mother's Eyes
Fin
