Disclaimer: Nothing you recognise belongs to me and I'm not making any money with this.

Author's Note: Thank you for your reviews on the first story, I'm glad you liked it :) This one goes together quite well with the third story so I'm posting them at the same time. I hope you'll like them.

Nothing in the Dark

It was darker and colder inside these walls than the longest night in the deepest winter could ever have been. In this darkness, it was easy to actually overlook the young man sitting on the floor in a corner of the cell, but nobody ever came down here looking for him anyway.

Trying to ease the anxiety he felt, he took a deep breath, painfully feeling his ribs on his left side. They had been hurting ever since he'd been subjected to that little interrogation three days ago. Maybe four. He'd given up trying to keep track of the days he spent down here; it was completely pointless anyway.

He'd asked the Aurors about the date for his trial a couple of times, but either they hadn't known or they just hadn't wanted to tell him. They probably couldn't even guess how much it would have meant to him. Or more likely, they knew very well and that was why they hadn't told him.

He needed something to wait for. He just couldn't sit around here in this darkness, doing nothing, thinking nothing, day after day after bloody day. He couldn't bear the anxiety and the fear any longer, and the waves of coldness and horror that swept over him whenever one of those wretched Dementors passed his cell. Compared to this, even death would mean freedom.

He could feel it already, all around him, every day – death. Death was a frequent visitor to this place. It seemed to hover above the prison, keeping a keen eye on all the lost souls inside these walls, just waiting to strike.

"Come and get me," he whispered into the darkness, barely audible. "Why don't you just come and get me."

"It's not time yet."

The reply was no more than a whisper, and he knew that nobody else could have heard it. He stared into the opposite corner of his cell, convinced that he saw movement in the darkness.

But he knew there was nothing there. He was just hearing voices again, seeing things. Azkaban was the kind of place that could do this to you. But he wasn't worried about losing his mind; it might make things easier.

"When will the time come?" he asked in a whisper.

"That's not yours to know."

Severus grinned broadly, his eyes glittering. A madman's smile.

Yes, a madman was what he'd become. And long before they'd locked him up in here. It really had taken him quite a while to realise that.

Looking back and remembering, he could see himself standing next to a dead man, laughing. A man he'd killed. He could hear the screams of his victims echoing in his ears, and he remembered how they'd been kneeling at his feet, begging him for mercy. But he'd never shown them any. He'd held lives in his hands, lives he could have spared, but he'd taken them. Just because he could. Because he'd had the power. He'd spread terror, he'd tortured and he'd killed – and he'd had his fun doing so.

He should really have noticed a little sooner what he'd become.

If he could turn back time... well, if he could, but he couldn't. Nobody could. He'd just have to live with his past and everything he'd done. Or rather, he'd have to die with it. They didn't have any reason to let him live. He probably didn't deserve it anyway, and maybe he didn't even want to.

Again and again, he'd taken too much; now it might be time for him to pay.

He leaned to the side, resting his head against the wall, the stone felt cold against his skin. He felt so tired. All he wanted to do was sleep. But it was difficult for him to find any sleep, in here, even more so.

He didn't need the Dementors to make the images appear, closing his eyes was usually enough. That's when they all came back to haunt him, to stare at him out of accusing eyes, to ask him why and to remind him of the guilt he carried.

Guilt. Another frequent visitor to this place, always accompanied by regret. Guilt and regret, they were the ones haunting him and showing him these images that he didn't want to see.

But did he really regret, or did he just feel sorry for himself now? It was difficult to tell one feeling from another. And it didn't matter anyway because no one would care.

Severus closed his eyes.

He couldn't turn back time, but if only he'd get a chance to make up for his mistakes, he'd take it, no matter the cost. He'd sworn that to himself long ago already, at a time when he didn't have the guts to turn away from his master. Maybe it hadn't even been that, maybe he'd just never had the courage to face the man he'd become.

"Just one chance," he whispered, his eyes still closed.

"Do you deserve it?" the darkness asked in return.

Severus didn't open his eyes. He knew there was nothing out there in the darkness; it was hiding deep in the darkness he carried inside of himself. The darkness that had always been there and always would be, the darkness that had tightened its grip around him so long ago and would never set him free again.

-end-