Morpheus grabbed Severus's arm as his vision blurred. The world spun, and Severus stumbled into him. When it slowed again, Morpheus shoved him away. "I said, she's not even your wife." Morpheus repeatsed, watching in amusement as Severus struggled to keep his footing.
It took a moment for his head to stop spinning, and when it finally did, Severus realized they were no longer in the shrieking shack. They hadn't apparated. Apparating felt different that what that was, but somehow Morpheus had transported them to a garden. He was surrounded by rich green grass, towering bushes, and flowering trees. Someone had taken great care to build intricate paths through flower beds lined with colored stones. Morpheus turned his back on him, moving to stand behind a large stone table. There was a body lying on it. "Freya!" Severus gasped. He started forward, but an invisible barrier blocked his path.
Morpheus laughed as Severus raised his fist to the barrier. Morpheus strode back towards him and moved through the barrier as though it wasn't there.
"Give her back to me," Severus demanded menacingly, lifting his wand towards Morpheus. His patience had worn thin. He'd had enough of the games. The trials. Whatever he wanted to call them. He was done.
Severus's head spun again, his vision blurring at the edges and the garden flashing in and out of focus. He was lying down with a mediwitch leaning over him, saying something that sounded too far away for him to make out the words. Severus reached up and gripped his throat as pain shot through him.
"No," He gasped, his voice coming out raw and hoarse as though he hadn't used it for months. He had to keep focused. He was standing in a garden in front of Morpheus who had abducted his wife. She was there. She was right there, and if he lost focus now he could lose her forever.
"Yes," Morpheus snapped back, even as Severus steeled himself against his instability, "You see it, don't you? That's real, Severus. Not a memory or some night terror come to haunt you in the daylight. That is your reality." Morpheus spread his arms, motioning to the world around them, "This, all of this, is the dream." He pointed towards Freya, "She is the dream."
"You're lying," Severus accused, still struggling to get a grip on his mind.
"She lied!" Morpheus yelled at him, barely able to keep his rage in check. Severus felt a smug sense of satisfaction to see how shaken Morpheus was by the decision he had made in the shack. It had unhinged him.
"I've spent years with her." Severus objected, hoping if he said it out loud it would help him steady himself. "We met in Hogsmeade. She saved my life during the battle. She wore a lavender dress at our wedding because she thinks white is boring. It was made of silk and lace."
"All lies," Morpheus snapped back, "All part of the the dream she created to make you love her!" Morpheus lunged forward and gripped Severus's head between his hands. Memories flashed before Severus's eyes, pulled forward to the front of his mind and then fading until Severus saw them for what they were. When he was done, Morpheus released him and Severus fell to his knees, breathing heavily.
"What did you do?" Severus demanded, glaring up at him. He didn't have the strength to stand.
"Who was at the shrieking shack with you, Severus?" Morpheus asked mockingly, taking a step back away from him.
"Freya," Severus answersed without thinking.
"Was she?" Morpheus challenged, studying him expectantly.
Severus frowned, dropping his gaze to the ground. His memories of her weren't gone... but they no longer felt real either. They existed somewhere between the lines of what he remembered and what he wished had happened. As his mind cleared, his throat began to burn. Severus lifted his hand to his throat where a bandage had suddenly appeared. He remembered it all now. No memory of Freya felt real now. That night he woke to Freya, he hadn't woken from a nightmare, he'd fallen into a dream. A new sort of ache washed through him, but this time it wasn't from the attack. It was the pain from losing the life he'd thought he had. "The mediwitch I keep seeing?" Severus asked softly, finally looking back up at Morpheus.
"You body is in St. Mungo's, Severus. You're unconscious, mostly, but every now and then you wake up, only for a moment. You were attacked weeks ago, not years ago." Morpheus explained, "I told you. I am God of Dreams. So long as you sleep, I can make you see anything I want you to see or feel anything I want you to feel."
Severus looked down at his hand where the acid had eaten at his skin. There was nothing there now. "And Freya?"
"She lied to you. She created those memories and implanted them in your mind to make you believe you loved her. None of it was real. You know that now, don't you?" Morpheus asked with more pity in his voice than Severus was comfortable with.
Under any other circumstances, Severus would have put him in his place for it, but right now he couldn't bring himself to. He wanted to know, had to know, "Why?"
"Does it matter?" Morpheus asked, a hesitation in his voice that hadn't been there before. "Does it change anything? She still manipulated your emotions for her own benefit."
"Did you kill her?" Severus demanded sharply, his eyes flashing back towards her body on the stone table.
Morpheus laughed, "No, of course not. I keep my promises. You've done as I asked and made it though my trials. I will uphold my end of our bargain as well. The only question is, do you still want her?"
Severus stood up, stumbling forward. Now that he knew the truth, he could feel it in his bones. Every single part of him ached, and any energy he'd imagined having was gone. He was thoroughly exhausted, body and mind. Still he pushed himself towards Freya. Morpheus watched curiously, but this time there was no invisible barrier keeping him from her. Now that he was closer, Severus could see her chest rise and fall with each breath she took. Relief flooded through him.
"Severus, it doesn't have to be this way." Morpheus said softly. "With one, single word I can make all of this go away. If you turn away from her, I can and will return your spirit to your body, and you will have a second chance to build a life for yourself. A real one. A real life, without war and misery...and rank, filthy dungeons. You could move away from Hogwarts and start over. You will have years upon years to do with as you please. Find a nice witch. Have your own family." As Morpheus spoke new visions danced in the garden around them. A woman with red hair dancing with children that looked like him. A small house with a garden. Everything Morpheus thought Severus would want. "All you have to do, is say yes. Say yes to me, and I will give you your future."
"And Freya?" Severus demanded, "What will happen to her?"
"Your memory of her will be like any other dream. It will fade." Morpheus answered, "You will feel no guilt for choosing life over her. How could you? She was never real to begin with. Nothing you had with her was real, and nothing you ever could have would be real. Freya will be what she has always been, nothing but a dream created by a lonely mind desperate for hope and compassion, desperate to create a light where there was none."
"What if I say no?"
Morpheus blinked. "Then you will remain comatose. You will have no life. Nothing but a dream that will prosper you nothing." Mopheus sighed and rubbed his eyes "Don't think of it as sacrificing her, Severus. She was never yours to begin with. Dreams don't belong to mortals. They are fleeting and fading. She's NOT real, and if you don't say yes, you won't be either. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life asleep?"
Severus turned back to Freya, brushing the hair back from her face. Morpheus was lying to him. He had memories of her from before the night he woke up in her room. There was more to this than Morpheus was telling him. "You're wrong. This wasn't the first time I dreamt her. I loved her before all of this. I didn't need the false memories for that."
Morpheus swallowed hard enough that, Severus could hear it, and he knew he was right. He could remember it clearly now. She had made appearances in several of his dreams over the past year. She had been his light where there was none, even when he had known she was just a figment of his imagination, and if he said no, he could stay here in a dream with her for the rest of his life. What was he really losing by not going back? He was headmaster of a school destroyed by war. Even if the Order of the Phoenix won, they hated him for what he'd had to do to stop the Dark Lord. They would only ever see him as the deatheater who murdered Dumbledore. If the Dark Lord had won, and he found Severus still amongst the living, it would only be a matter of time before he tried to kill him again. There was nothing left for him there.
Something light and feathery brushed against his mind. He could feel it just as easily as he would have felt it if someone had physically touched him. "Its ok," Freya's voice whispered in his mind, "You're ok. Its over now. I know you, Severus. You don't deserve to be haunted by your past forever. You won't lose me." They were the words she'd first spoken to him that night. Their true meaning suddenly hit him. She had known what he'd just experienced. That it hadn't been a nightmare. In her own way, Freya really had pulled him from the shrieking shack.
"This is the perfect place for us," Severus said out loud. That was what she had told him the morning Morpheus had taken her.
"What did you say?" Morpheus frowned, disbelief filling his voice, as though he was certain he had heard him wrong.
Severus turned back towards him. "Even if all of this is a dream, what I feel for my wife is not. If waking up means losing this part of my reality, I don't want it. My answer...my final answer, is no. Give me back my wife."
Morpheus lifted a gloved hand and took his top hat from his head, tilting his head at Severus as though he still didn't believe what he was hearing. "Really? You said no? You choose to stay?"
"I choose Freya," Severus replied sharply, daring him to question him again.
"That is incredible," Morpheus murmured, placing his hat back on his head. Morpheus lifted his other hand, opened his palm, and blew a silvery dust at Severus.
Darkness swam at the edges of his vision and Severus stumbled forward. "Morpheus!" Severus called out angrily. Morpheus smiled and turned away from him. Severus's vision blurred and he fell to the ground as Morpheus disappeared into the garden.