The Centre Cannot Hold

When they stepped out of the memory, Snape controlled himself long enough to lead Potter over to the sofa and into a safe sitting position, but the next moment he was in the bathroom, kneeling in front of the toilet and emptying his breakfast into the bowl.

There was not too much to empty, since he wisely hadn't eaten much in the first place, but he continued dry heaving for some time, his intestines doing their very best to exit his body through his mouth.

In that moment, collapsed in his own bathroom, sweating like an animal and stinking of his own vomit, Snape realized that he didn't know how to get through this whole and sane. And more that: How he could ever hope to get Potter through this.

He was the man's healer, damn it, and instead of taking care of his patient, he'd let his own needs consume him.

He hadn't looked out for the Fading, too weak to even confront what Potter had lived through. Hell and damnation, the man could be having a seizure right now, and Snape wasn't there to help.

As his old teacher used to say: That wouldn't do at all.

So he cleaned himself quickly and efficiently, willing the images of Potter's broken limbs, the images of the boy writhing on the ground and screaming for all he was worth to the back of his mind where he wouldn't have to think about them right now.

It was a technique well practiced over the years. Even if it made him feel as if he was taking the easy way.

When he'd freshened up and quickly brushed his teeth, he returned to the living room, drawing on his years of spying to create a mask of calm professionalism for himself, even though he suspected that the man wouldn't believe it a moment. Potter had a knack for seeing right through him, after all.

"Potter," he asked gruffly, trying to hide the fact that he'd just been violently ill, even though Potter had probably heard every part of it. "How are you?"

"Very glad that my fingers aren't broken, Professor," Potter answered with a twisted smile. "I had forgotten… the sheer violence of it, I guess. But there's much I have forgotten about that year. And…" he hesitated a moment, his eyes flickering to Snape and away again. "And thankful that you were the one there with me."

He swallowed, searching for words, and Snape noticed that he was moving very carefully and deliberately, as if he was afraid that those old injuries would make themselves known any minute.

"I couldn't have done that with Dumbledore standing over me, or anyone else, really. And I know that it must be awful for you to witness all that, especially considering your own history, but I do appreciate it, and I know that you will do the right thing, no matter what happens."

The words were rushing out of him now, a great torrent of worries and reassurances, and Snape felt slightly overwhelmed, wondering at the same time if this was the moment when Potter finally cracked.

"And this is probably the last time I'll be able to say this," Potter hurtled on. "Since I'm not feeling very well, and the exhaustion and pain will only get worse, and soon I won't be able to care for myself anymore, not to mention you or anybody else, but you need to remember that I trust you, absolutely, with my life, and everything you've done 'til now has only confirmed my trust, and that I chose you for this, Professor. I chose you, not to change you or to teach you something, but because of who you are. Because you can detach yourself, because you alone of all the people I know, can watch… that, and witness me die, and still keep yourself together till the right time, to do what is necessary…"

Potter stopped abruptly and breathed in deeply

"I survived that," he whispered, slightly desperate, as if not entirely convinced himself. "Make sure that you will, too. You're the saviour now, and you can't afford to be distracted."

He closed his mouth. The room felt empty, despite all the words that had filled it a moment ago. And Snape took a slow, labouring breath, feeling heavy and old all of a sudden.

Then he swished his wand and conjured a cup of tea.

"Stop being so disgustingly melodramatic, Potter," he ordered harshly. "And drink your tea. We need to get some liquid into you."

And Potter smiled, and thanked him with his eyes, and drank his tea. Snape had to reach out and steady his hand a few times, or it would have sloshed all over him.

Potter was a screamer. There were the screamers, and the whimperers, and the sobbers, and even some laughers, although those didn't usually last very long. There'd been a laugher once, an auror, Snape recalled, and his continuous giggling and guffawing had driven McNair so crazy that he'd…

But Potter was a screamer. Quite surprisingly, considering that he'd spent most of his life so silent and guarded, but torture gave a kind of insane freedom to some, and Potter used it amply, raging and howling and swearing, giving voice to all the thoughts locked away in his skull for too many years.

He cursed Voldemort and the Death Eaters, ("Oh Harry, you do not appreciate what we are doing for you," Voldemort said). He cursed Dumbledore, Snape, McGonagall and Hogwarts ("Now that is something we entirely agree upon, dear Harry").

He raged against Gryffindor, and his friends, and the Order (but he still managed not to betray their secrets, mostly because no one bothered to ask him anything, they were perfectly satisfied with making him scream).

He fouled the Dursleys' name for not killing him before he'd gone to Hogwarts, and he tore at himself for being so stupid, so damn stupid, and utterly unable to do anything but live (the Death Eaters had to restrain his hands during those hours, or he would have clawed his own face off. This was the first time that a prisoner was willing to do their job for them, they'd joked as they yanked his wrists up and hung him from the iron pole).

In the end, he cursed his mother for birthing him.

Then he went silent.

"I'd never thought I'd see it," Snape commented, trying for sarcasm, but there was an aching pain where the words were coming from. "A Potter giving up."

His Potter raised his eyes from the contemplation of his own memory-self.

"Not quite yet, Professor," he said. "Neither one of us is quite ready yet." But his eyes traced the broken ruins of his younger self with something like longing, and the stillness of their bodies seemed to wait patiently for release.

"Besides," he added after a moment filled only with curses and rough laughter and bruising, gaping flesh. "Giving in isn't always bad. It can keep you alive that much longer."

He chuckled brokenly, a parody of the full, rich sound that Snape had hated so much barely a week ago.

"Like I told you: Embracing the pain is the key. I am a champion of that specific discipline."

So much so that you'll embrace your own death, Snape thought bitterly.

He remembered what Shadow had said about Potter's time with Voldemort, that he had crawled inside himself like a hermit crab.

Quite an apt description, Snape admitted as he watched the process.

Potter seemed to shrink in front of his eyes, as if someone was cutting away at him from all angles.

First, he lost his voice, then his glasses and that annoying upright Gryffindro strut. His clothes went next, the last vestiges of what he'd been, and with them he lost his modesty, the reluctance to show himself naked or perform his bodily functions in front of others.

He lost his smile and his sleep, and his will to eat (of course his teeth had been gone long before, several times, actually, but Voldemort didn't employ excellent healers for nothing).

He lost the use of his hands (too many healings numbed the nerves, and you had to work to keep them functional).

He lost the ability to walk or stand ("Now really, Harry," Voldemort said reproachfully when Potter just lay there, unable to move on his own. "A little effort, or we'll stop healing your leg and force you to stand on them").

He lost his words, and his dreams, and his hopes.

He lost what Harry Potter had been, and everything that he might have been in a future that had become distant, hazy and unreal even to Snape, who had witnessed it first hand.

As he followed Potter down the spiral of slow disintegration, fighting with everything he had to stay detached, useful, to do what Potter and everyone else trusted him to do, Snape felt the reality of the world outside his quarters slip away.

They had their meals delivered to them, and Snape insisted on regular breaks to give his Potter a chance to rest and gather his strength, but with the hours and days advancing, Voldemort's dungeons became more real to him than anything else in his life, while Potter slipped away and became more of a shadow every day.

He was doing a little better than his counterpart in the memories, at least, but that was small consolation to Snape, who forced potion after potion down his patient's throat but still lost the race against his illness.

And Potter simply gave himself over to the powers that now determined his fate, didn't complain, took everything that was given to him and even tried to sleep though nightmares attacked him as soon as he closed his eyes.

He made very sure to thank Snape, as often as he could, and when he lay on the sofa, always cold and paler every day, he looked so very close to death that Snape wanted to shout at him, wanted to provoke him into showing a bit of spirit, a bit of resistance.

But if the memories had showed him anything, it was that Potter knew how to survive adverse situations better than anyone else. If this was the only way he could manage, Snape would be damned to shake him out of it.

Still it ate at him, the way both Potters were dissolving in front of him, and not a damn thing to do against it. He could not step in and halt the torture, shield that small and meagre body against the ceaseless pain. He could not stop the Fading's progress either, only build barricades against it with potions and spells and his own, unbroken will.

Not enough. Nothing was enough.

And Potter knew it. Every single gesture spoke of this knowledge, and his every word spoke of the inevitable. He was forgiving Snape even before his failure, and that forgiveness somehow hurt worse than anything else during these hellish days.

Snape vaguely remembered that there had been a time, not many days ago, when he had agreed to help Potter let go of his soul. It had been a logical decision at the time, the only thing he could do if he wanted to respect Potter's independence and rights.

But Snape was beyond logic now.

He had seen now, was seeing what had been done to this man every minute of every day, for even when they were taking a break from the endless memories of torture he was seeing it, even when he was sitting in his chair in his living room, watching Potter sleep he was listening to his screams.

He had seen all that had been taken away from him. And he would not let it happen again, not as long as he had something left to fight it.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Snape realized his own strength. For the first time, he saw his own determination and will, forged through years of servitude and silent waiting, understood how the constant fear and worry had created a patience not many men could match.

For the very first time, Snape found within himself the decision to fight against all odds. He had taken on Voldemort for this man, long before he had even liked the boy. He had fought the great Albus Dumbledore over this man's soul.

And he'd be damned if he was beaten by a mere, stupid illness when nothing before had been able to kill Potter. He'd be damned if he failed.

His hand would never finish what an army of Death Eaters had failed to accomplish.

So he would not let Potter die. Never. Not even if he begged for it.