It's a Dark World in Here

So much time, so little to do, Harry, the voice says.

I could sleep, I tell it.

Sleep, sleep, with all these?All these bruises and all the memories?

The voice in my head laughs, suspiciously like the very man next to me.

You like it, it tells me.

I don’t, I argue.

This is silly, I tell it. You’re nobody.

I’m nobody?

I swallow and my throat clenches, sore.

Nobody, I agree. Just a bastard in my head.

The voice doesn’t respond. It never does when I’d like to hear what it has to say.

Sometime after I fall asleep. I wake up on my back, the bed empty.

He moved me from the basement quite a while back. The last time I slept in there was my twelfth birthday.

I spend all my days in his room, now. He tends to mutter in his sleep. I’ve only caught ‘Dumbles’ and ‘Snape’ and ‘Rat’, but I have a feeling one or all of them are part of the reason I was moved.

Time passes strangely up here. Differently. I don’t recall the days, can’t remember half of the week on a Saturday.

Or is it a Sunday?

I get up and dress in the little clothing he allows me, some shorts with a hole that’s covered (whats the point?) and a long black shirt.

I do my stretches, working out the kinks he worked in.

You like it.

I don’t. But I choose to ignore the voice.

You’re sick. A sick, sick little boy, it sneers.

“Shut up,” I growl aloud.

Bad mistake. My throat aches and my hand flies to grasp it. I cough but it does nothing to help. Something dark, red, spills out from my throat onto my arms and the carpet.

Finally, the voice sneers again. Finally you die.

Dark spots appear in my vision, and then grow and change.

It’s a rather beautiful sight, I think, before I lose consciousness.

“Blue is like water,” Josie holds up a cup, clear, she had said.

“I thought it was clear?”

“Well, it is. If there is a bunch there’s a possibility of if being blue. Unless it’s like, dirty, than it’s green,” her eyes blink closed, head against my shoulder as she speaks. She swallows the water then lays the cup down, the rest of the water spilling onto the bed.

“Like my eyes?” I ask softly.

“No,” she denies. “You’re eyes are like emerald gems. Dirty water is dirty water.”

We sit in silence for a while, nothing but the sound of yelling and music from upstairs filling the room.

“Rye liked them.”

Josie doesn’t respond, but she does look at me.

“So does he.”

We don’t speak for a long time.

I cower away from him.

He was going to find me either way, but I need not offer myself on a silver platter.

I would not make it easy.

Tobias grabbed my arm and wretched me back, yanking it straight from its socket.

I do not scream.

Severus wakes up from the memory-like-dream and if it wasn’t for the frantic way his eyes searched the room you’d never be able to tell he’d awoken from one so full of horrors.

Severus rolls to his side, looking for what awoke him.

Chalking it up to a mix of the dream and the Dark lords manor, he gets up and decides to go for a glass of water.

He leaves the room and walks down stairs, into the kitchen. No house elf is awake, and he silently cast a tempus. 2:25

Severus hums as he pours the water, then makes his way upstairs.

He starts his climb to the east wing, only to halt in his steps.

There was a pull, a yank, a tug, towards the west wing where the dark lord and his favorite whore’s slept.

He could feel to his very core he could not ignore this, but it could jeopardize the mission, the Order, his very livelihood.

Before Severus could stop himself he was six steps up the stairs to the west wing and unable to stop.

He was in front of the dark lords door before he knew it, allowing himself a few steps grace.

Severus inches towards the door and he pops it open, glancing inside.

His heart pounds, but not because he was caught.

He wasn’t staring at blood red eyes like he believed he would be.

He wasn’t writhing on the floor from a crucio.

But, there was someone on the ground, someone tiny. They wore barely there boxers briefs and a large shirt that was pooling around their waist.

Severus was on the floor next to the form before he knew it, wand out and fingers to his pulse.

Nothing.

Severus flips the form open and stops in his tracks. He nearly sneers before his eyes catch on a sizzling scar.

Lightning bolt?

It was a lightning bolt.

And familiar Potter hair, almond-shaped eyes.

Severus cast a few charms frantically, arms twitching with the power.

The diagnostics all came back the same.

Dead, 2:19 A.M, 08/17

Death from Embolism, 02:19

Severus settles back on his calves and his eyes shut.

Another victim of the war, the one supposed to save them (even though Severus believed it was bullshit, Dumbledore would crack).

Severus slowly stood and floated the boy to the bed. He wrinkles his nose in disgust and then into something akin to pity for the poor kid.

Severus made quick work of fixing the carpet, removing the blood and piss stain. He then moves to the boy, spelling his clothes off and cleansing him.

He spells new ones back on, then turns to leave.

“W-wait.”

Severus stops.

He finds himself contemplating, for a second, if he’s gone mental.

Severus turns and meets the bright green eyes of Harry fucking Potter.