In the dark. She was awake in the dark. Always the dark. It filtered through her eyes. Keeping the world at bay, for just a moment. Void and empty, but warm in the snow. Warm against the harsh winter's water of the pond. In the dark, she knew she was safe. It would cast itself across her body, hiding her from view. Shadows swarmed as she struggled to breath. The Patronas long gone out. The doe had danced in the blue of its body. Prancing and dancing in the darkness as she would have.
Her heart was pulsing slowly, her blood sluggish, she couldn't move her limbs. In the dark, she was different. They once said don't let them in. Don't let them see. Don't let them know. But in the darkness, the come on their own. Just close your eyes and clear you thoughts again. But when in the darkness, in the loneliness, in the lovelessness. They came on their own. Without permission and concerns. Just like now as the water entered her lungs. Without her consent, she was dying. Oh, she was dying. Hadn't she always been though? She would have laughed had the water not taken that ability.
She wasn't afraid of death. Of torture. Of lies. She wasn't scared. Not really. Not completely. They were just specks compared to her. To her inner demons. To her thoughts. The duel fighting over and over and over again. Light and Dark. Angels and Demons. When she was alone, her thoughts were always more dangerous to her then Voldemort could ever hope to be. Always.
The water was scorching on her skin. Freezing and boiling all the same. Her hair flowing like the darkness below her. Her eyes were open, clear in the face of death. She wasn't afraid. There was no need to be. She would be safest in death. The whole world would be. The black began to dot her vision and her body began to panic, forcing her to squirm and thrash for just a moment, until she just...let go. And she floated as if she was weightless. Being in the water was like the air. Freedom and uncertainty, knowing anything could happen. In the air, in the water. She could think.
As she lost her vision and her back met the bottom of the lake, she had one thought.
"I'll finally get to see them."
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A flash of light so bright it outshone the moon, hair dark and wet with a drip, drop, drip. Hands cold and clothes freezing. Eyes of dark and dusk.
"Rest Now, I've got you."
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"I'm doing everything I can."
"Your not doing enough!"
All she felt was regret, and sorrow, as sadness filled her soul, she hadn't meant to say that to Hermione. All she heard was the whispering, the dark purring voice of a young Tom Riddle. She hated him, and that hatred rose in her words. She had hurt Hermione, but she'd make up for it. She would.
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"...You think I don't know how this feels!"
There it was again, the sadness, the sorrow, the burn deep in soul that boiled her blood and burnt her marrow. It was hot, it was pain. All she felt was betrayal, gouged and carved, it was now a part of her. It was all of her.
"No you don't, Your parents are dead, you have no family!"
And then, she was angry, and it wasn't burning or boiling. It didn't melt her skin or turn her blood to steam. No it was a cold, molten ice. Slowly freezing everything, it spread with the pressure of white noise, her breath turned to mist in the air. It hardened her skin and steeled her heart. It was rage. It was fury. It was her. She was it.
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"And you? Are you coming or are you staying!"
She shouldn't be surprised. Shock shouldn't make her hands shake. The hurt from his words shouldn't make her lips tremble. But it did, and it rushed through her body like the cold water in a tsunami. Fast and hard and cutting. She shouldn't be surprised, but she was. It would never be that way again.
She was alone.
As It had been.
As It was.
As It always will be.
Alone.
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Hydra watched as the tent flaps floated up in the air after Hermione rushed out of them. She could hear them talking, hear Hermione telling at Ron to come back, the halt in footsteps. Hermione came back in, with dark resignation in her hazel eyes, angry and frustration and sadness. Hydra smiled, small and sharp and suffering. She understood, she knew. She excepted it really, she had all along, they were in love. She was just an outsider looking in. She couldn't, she wouldn't do anything to stop Hermione if she wanted to leave. She was going to make up for what she said. She was.
"Hydra - I-"
"Go with Ron, Hermione. Talk with him. I-I'll be fine."
('Fine' what a vague loose word. It made her want to cry. 'Fine' a normal word twisted with the crimson rust on her tongue and the rot churning in her lungs. She didn't know what fine was. All she knew was how to survive. Not how to be 'Fine'. It was such a word that stunk with the putrid stench of lies.)
Hermione was gone, packed in minutes. And then with a swirl of color, she was following after Ron. Hydra didn't know where, but she knew, it be a long time before she saw them again.
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It was quiet, so very quiet. And it was empty, the air was becoming stagnant. Stiff and still. She hadn't moved in hours, and her warming charms were wearing. All was quiet, and even the pages of her books made not a noise when she turned them. There were hundreds of them, littering the beds, floors and walls. Taken from the Black Townhouse and Potter vaults. Her head hurt with how long she'd been reading. For days on end, non-stop. Words and pages and ink were all she knew. The locket was in the far corner, in a box wrapped under so many charms, spells and curses that Hydra barely remember them all.
She could still hear him. She could still feel him, a shadow, seeping in the corners and fabric and cracks. Like water being sucked in by a sponge. Absorabing everything, taking and turning until...until, it had all things. She was good at ignoring the slow, sicking voice of Tom Riddle. And his promises of family and blood. Of power and knowledge and control. She was good at ignoring him, but that didn't mean the words didn't stab at her soul.
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There were two patroni now. The proud stag with its ten point antlers out and high. Tall with strong hooves and smart eyes. For her father, her blood, her start, her name, this was Prongs.
The other, a graceful doe with elegant fur and sharp burning eyes. Small compared to the stag but magnifact in its own way. Quiet and watching, protecting with everything it was. This was her mother, her fighter, her protector, her nurturer, this was Lily.
They galloped around the field, leaping around the other. Bringing swift winds as they searched for danger and darkness. When they found the horcrux, the dark and glinting gold of the locket. They reared up and away, legs high in the air. They were made of the soul, the stag made of the happiness harbored there. They were light. Except the doe, it wasn't made of happy memories. No.
The doe had been made of the Lily screams. Of her tears and pleas, and her death. This doe was not light, it was sadness and sorrow and anger. It was a much darker blue, much faster too. It seemed to take in the darkness instead of repelling it for a time. It took and destroyed, and like Lily had, it burned. They couldn't destroy the horcrux, but they could ward it off, they could silence it.
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She could still feel it, ghosting along her finger tips, the outside had been velvet, soft to the touch, the inside had been silk, smooth and cold. The overcoat had been warm from where it was on his body. Sirius's body. She remember gripping at the peice of cloth, she remembered. God, she couldn't forget the feeling of that cloak. The last piece of clothes Sirius had ever worn, before, before. Just before.
She remember how her muscles strained to reach further, to lengthen and stretch. She remember the desperation, the utterly consuming, rushing roar of helplessness. Nothing will ever compare to the feeling her body was filled with that night. As the curtain wrapped and whirled like smoke around his body. And then he was gone. And her nose was just a hairs width away form The Veil, she felt the cold breath on her neck. she was transfixed. Then she heard them. The whispers. Only one step, it would take only one step to follow him, just o-
Strong quivering arms wrapped around her just as her foot started to rise. The scent of wood and smoke filled her nose. She struggled, she fought with everything she was. She had to get Sirius. She'd never forget the way she screamed. She didn't think any of them could.
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Sometimes she wonders. What he heard, what the voices had whispered. Why he didn't walked though when he was dueling in front of it for so long. Sometimes she wonders, and it hurts.
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She was warm. Unexplainablely and irrevocably warm. Not the kind of temperature warm, as cold and hot were. But warm fuzzy feeling that was contentment. Warm like a mothers hug would feel against a child's soul. She had never been warm. Not like this. Never like this. And because of that, she didn't want to open her eyes. Because if she did, she would have to face the world and see it as it was, and that meant the feeling would leave her like Hermione and Ron had. She wanted to be for just another moment. Just one more moment.
Because outside this feeling in her head, lurking just beyond the darkness of closed lid, was a war of loss, death and horror. The war, with its blood and bone and brokenness, had taken everything she had ever loved. Had ever wished for, had ever dreamed of, long before she was born. She didn't want to leave this cocoon of feeling. She wished she didn't have to even think of absence the warm would create. Then question began to rise, thoughts began to run, instincts began to scream. Magic began to build. And then she was woken from that haze and slow like syrup state of mind. She didn't want to. Not yet. So she calmed, she breathed and she laid in that warm like a fat kitchen cat would lounge in the morning sun. But it didn't last long.
It never does.
Not for her. Her heart quickened, her blood pulsed, it seemed that fog of peace had dissipated, for now she could feel cool and silken material on her bruised skin, she could feel the heat from a fire and soft bedding on her back and plush pillows her head rested apon. She could hear pages of a book turning, drifting between gentle care and the sound floated like church bells ringing. And a voice gentle and dark, she could now hear whispers of words and rhyme. But if seemed to be muffled, perhaps she was still asleep. Or maybe she was dead. Because something here did not make sense. This voice, dark and smooth and soft, was familiar, so familer in fact she had left that warm feeling and opened her eyes in shock as the voice began to clear from its smothered sounds.
"I focus my mind on thee. I close my eyes. It is you whom I just want to see. I light not lamps at the temple. I believe in things true and simple. I give my soul to thee. I do all work only remembering thee. Always be there walking beside me. I now find this world too bewildering. I fall into pits of confusion, the moment I start pondering. The scripts say You are the goal and you are the way. Many a faith filled ones have crossed their tribulations taking your name all their way. They say - You listen to them when they pray. People have often stabbed me when I trusted them. Amidst the clouds of sorrow, it was your thought which just came-"
"Professor Snape?"
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Those eyes, when he had first seen them as she walked into the great hall seven years ago, those eyes had reminded him of Lily's. They haunted him, seeked him amongst the crowd, they were everywhere. Lily's eyes. But as the girl grew, and he focused enough on those eyes, He soon realized they were not Lily's, not completely. Lily's had been green, like summer grass and spring leaves, bright but pale with their density. They held a spark of life and love, not a single sorrow or tragedy floating in that warm green. They were innocent and naive when she was a child and as she went into her teenage years. She had not suffered in her younger life, so forever her eyes had been that warm green.
Her daughter though, her daughter's eyes were far from what Lily's had been. Dark and burning, that green was something otherworldly. Viridian shades of emerald far more vauble then the jewel could ever be. Burning and raging a fire of darkness and hate. Her eyes overwhelmed with the life she had lived. Drowning in shadows. Those eyes held something Lily never had, cruelty and revenge. Sorrow beyond imagination and tragedy was what made her blood. Her eyes, they were cold and cutting, refusing to see light in the world that left her behind, so very, very far behind.
Those eyes had never held innocence or naivety. So far from Lily's they couldn't really be compared to the other. He had never completely connected to Lily the way most people had thought, he loved her, yes but they had been friends, the best of friends. They would always be separate somewhere, somehow. She would be light and he would be dark. He had desires to see the world Burn and she wanted only peace and love. He knew that could never come true. He knew what the world was like, and he saw it for what it was.
Tragedy. Horror. Hell.
Hydranthea though, she saw it too. She had lived through it too. She could see Hell, and she was planning on changing it. Fighting to save what could be saved. To help when she could help. She brought light from where she stood in the darkness.
She walked in grey.
Dark and light, she saw hell, she saw heaven. And made them meet. He admired her for it. He was awed by what she could do and inspire. Amazed by how she hadn't broken, at least not they way he had.
She wasn't Lily, never would be, never had been. And neither was she James. Many thought he was bitter, and thought of her only as Potter's spawn. Or the child that got Lily killed. They were wrong, he knew who she was. And neither of those were it.
She was Hydranthea Potter, herself. And no one else.
Severus had known the moment winky told him Granger and Weasley were seen at The Burrow, where she was keeping watch over Molly and Arthur, the Hydra had been abandoned. That was when he made his plan. To help Hydra Potter win the war. Voldemort had named him headmaster. He has sent out his patroni the moment the located Dumbldore had in his office went off that Hydra was near the sword. He was never planning on saving her. He never planned any of it. But he worked best under pressure
After he had found her, wet, drenched and drowned. His mind began to work, to turn and think. She slept for three days.
And that's when he decided to stay.
Authors Note: Severus/FemHarry. I can't find many of these fics, and I've searched a lot. so I decided to write on of my own. Does anyone know any good FemHarry Snarry fics please do tell. I like how this turned out. Feedback is welcome.
The poem is In Memory Of God by Subrat Mohanty, found in their book called Voices Of Silence
~TheAbyssLooksBack22~