deliver me and carry me away

The clock strikes 20:26 PM. Everything is in place. The room is quiet the way it always is; dead might be a better word. The chill is persistent, after all. It is intensified by silence, but does not cease come sound. The clock strikes 20:27 PM, and this is proven correct. The doorbell rings, and the chill stretches to make space for the ringing instead of disappearing altogether, then twists back in shape once it stops.

He watches through his eyes as he stands up to open the door. He already knows who to expect there, did then and does now. The words ‘myLord' never seem to etch themselves in his head, so he cannot say that. It's not his Lord, the DarkLord he is opening the door to — but it isn’t TomRiddle either. One’s too far away away, too detached, devout in a way that he isn’t; he can say it out loud, but if he did so in his head, it’d sound like a mockery. The other’s too indifferent. It is His name, but it does not bear a closeness.

When he thinks of Him, he paints a picture in his head instead. One of those things that exists almost wordlessly in his mind. Tall and lean, with dark hair, eyes glinting with flickers of red, His skin smooth in an uncanny way which is oddly fitting, melting into different shapes and expressions like the wax of a sculpture — he refers to Him as You, or as Him, with a certain emphasis on the words which grants them respect. 

By 20:28 PM, he sees Him. Greets Him in the manner that sounds more natural when spoken: “my Lord,” that is, and a nod of his head, before he opens the door wider and lets Him come through. He says nothing, and Severus doesn’t either. He — Tom Riddle, the Dark Lord — steps into the room, looking around, then gestures towards the sofa. Severus sits down, as does the man.

He tries to remember the words which will hit the air before they have the chance to. predict them, in a sense, and he finds that he can. ( “You know why we’re here.” ) In the moment, the Dark Lord's voice had been soft, gentle, almost comforting. Not in the traditional manner, but it carried an ease within itself, one that might’ve reassured him his predicament is a matter of fate. Whichever path he threaded through, he’d have ended up sitting here, with him, hearing the softness of his voice.

Severus doesn’t believe this, of course. Not in a broader sense, but he knows that if Tom Riddle had said it, he wouldn’t have meant it broadly anyway. Rather, He'd have meant it within the limits of the paths Severus would thread. The choices he would have made, rather than the ones he simply could have made.

He knows him well enough to know them  — it’s why they’re there in the first place. This understanding, too, carries an ease within itself. This is not a punishment, he tells himself again, and to say that is not to try and find solace where there isn’t any. It is the truth. The help one needs is not always the help one wants. This is the truth, as well.

He nods in response. He does know, just as Tom knows he doesn’t need reassurance of the situation. The prophecy has been made, told, shared and its contents are an evident distraction. Something which bothers Severus, doesn’t permit him to function with the same assurance which has become characteristic — Tom knows this, too. Of course He does, He can see it, even if Severus doesn’t let in on it. His sight threads deeper than what meets the surface. The concern comes not from the present moment, but from what could happen.

Though he’s reliable in nearly every other way, He cannot rely on him to be predictable. The human mind and the conclusions it comes to are vast. These things catch up to you, he says; emotion. Morality. The guilt of killing Lily Potter, by proxy, by means of fulfilling duty.

“I cannot let them.”

Severus’ black eyes land on Tom's, and the two of them are silent again. When the force moves to read his mind, It doesn’t feel as invasive as is typical. It's meticulous, careful and slow. He feels a voice echo in his head — his own, but the words are not picked out by him. Woven from past thoughts, it tells him, you’ll trust me.

He doesn't deny it, nor does he want to, because he knows he will. 

The force increases, but doesn’t feel any more violent. He inhales slowly, then exhales just as slow. A static builds itself around any thought or memory which isn’t the present moment. He'll resist if he isn’t calm, he thinks, but it’s not a thought which belongs to him. Rather, it’s one he has to accept, which he does. With each passing moment, the world around him begins to take on the quality of detachment, too, until it can only be described as being simply there. He doesn’t perceive it, he only perceives his mind, His eyes and their sight moving through it. 

Experiencing it again, with an added clarity, feels like nothing else which he can describe. It gives a new meaning to the word surreal. He can ration through what happens, and he knows that if given the chance, he could’ve even then. And yet, that doesn’t stop or change anything. There’s no grief or blame which comes with that realisation, he lets it sit still and set in. 

The static is necessary. It is a method of sedation, of sorts, yes — but more importantly, it’s a relinquishment of control. It serves as a blockade. With the blockade in place, he cannot access corners of his mind, even if he manages to muster up the desire to resist. He cannot force Him to stray where he doesn’t want to, cannot push the contents in his mind to places where they won’t be reached. Instead, the honour of doing so is handed over to Him. It is up to Tom Riddle to decide what goes where, and it is up to Severus to let that happen. 

It’ll remain for a long time, the static. It’s not a matter of hours, not even of days, no. It'll be there for weeks, perhaps months, he hopes not longer. Not as strong as it had been two days prior, but as strong as Tom Riddle deems it ought to be. Earning back the entirety of his consciousness has been written down as a slow and steady journey, and there’s no use in being impatient. He's learnt to rid himself of these unnecessary frustrations; there’s better things to aim his anger towards.

His mind feels as though it’s being picked apart all over again. Perhaps the Dark Lord knew that he’d go through the memory, feel it all over from a new perspective, one which would spark a form of shame. Severus could feel Him scanning each thought, each memory, and doing so with ease. He'd already seen everything, the act was merely a reminder of the change.

Against his will, things had shifted from where he’d arranged them. The notion of those things — the ones which could spark doubt or disloyalty, had been previously suppressed. Existent, but given no weight.

Such is not anymore, the reminder of which is meant to inform him why precisely he ought to relinquish control. He's not as capable of seizing it as he once was. Another thought pops up in his head: he needs to be given a push. Needs someone to hold him where he is until he can continue doing so on his own. This role belongs to the Dark Lord.

He’ll indulge Him, because of course he will. For a moment, Severus ponders over that word, indulge.

He thinks that it makes his an almost mocking thought — to indulge the Dark Lord, as though there’s an element of choice, as though he can look at Him and say no. Then again, he supposes it’s correct. He’s not the victim of the Dark Lord’s wants any more than he is of his own. He's indulging Him through indulging the consequences of his actions. He's not in control of orders, those he cannot deny, but he is of himself.

Severus supposes that he could think he’s bearing them, but he doesn’t like that, either. As long as you do not bear your own self, you don’t bear the consequences, either. He hadn’t crumbled under the weight of self–deprivation, he doesn’t have the right to do so.

He thinks that in some subconscious way, he must’ve decided to delight at the weight he had added back to his world, and hence decided to continue along with the newfound lack of apathy. It wouldn’t be anything surprising, nor anything new. Not at all. Self–punishment is a drug to be taken in moderation. And though he doesn’t consider himself masochistic, nor does he consider the measures which ought to be taken something a masochist would find enjoyable due to their nature — he believes he should welcome them. Delight in this, too, even if it contradicts the satisfaction which letting go of restraints brings. 

It’s not so much indulgence, anyway, when he would’ve taken the same course of action even if he didn’t know the Dark Lord wanted him to; the realisation only adds another reason.

He pauses. It’s an odd feeling to pause in his state, because he cannot take in the world from a fresher perspective once the pause is over. He cannot take a breath through which he’d feel the air fill up his lungs, he’d only know it did, nor can he close his eyes and open them to take in the light all over again. They’re already closed. All it does is allow the scene to resume, without his added narration. That which he continues a moment later, either way.

The force doesn’t feel like a force. ‘Not as invasive as usual’ had been an understatement. He calls it that, a force, because it feels like an attack every other time, he calls it invasive because it’s like being swarmed — to defend himself from it is to let it in without letting it touch anything. You bottle yourself up, turn the mind into something small and shielded, ignore the pressure so heavy it feels as though you’re about to burst. This is entirely different.

It feels like a needle, Severus decides. Small and wielded with a steady hand. Or a steady mind. It’s piercing through him, leaving a trail of an odd ache after itself. 

He himself feels… open. The feeling of being picked apart had disappeared, instead being replaced with something which resembles dissolution. All the walls crumble, and it’s strangely calming. It feels vulnerable, in the way flesh would be if you tore the skin off. Raw and naked.

Severus finds that he doesn’t hate this feeling. the rawness and nakedness of the mind is far different from that of the physical. The filth of the world can’t touch it. It’s a safer, kinder sort of harm; there’s no blood to clean, there’s no dust, none of the burning feeling of as much as air touching you. It’s letting go. It’s a bit like floating over the base space yourself with all the added parts of you sinking right beside you. Some things flow up, they stay with you at the surface. Others find some middle ground. The rest sink where they can’t be reached.

Where they can’t be reached is where the distractions need to be.

The needle moves slowly, not slow enough to be torturous, but almost. He knows that it’s purposeful, meant to serve as another reminder, because it’s slower than necessary. Though the Tom Riddle he knows is not a man who rushes things, gets them over with as soon as possible, He has never had the habit of dragging the lessons He gives Severus on. Nothing was ever quick, and yet the slowness seemed natural — now it did not.

It starts off with the surface, as is natural. Severus feels it puncture through the feelings which burden (delight) him, feels it weave through them over and over again until they are covered in a thread of repression. It tugs at them, brings them down and drapes the indifference over like a quilt. 

It doesn’t feel, then, the way it did previously. At any other time, he’d have been frustrated to note the limit of memory, but he cannot muster up frustration. Only a thought of want. The sensation is not the same as it had been, it is the only thing he knows, the events of two days prior having already passed; he can try to remember them, but he cannot replicate the initial feeling they brought, nor does he truly know it. Not anymore, at least.

It’s not that they’re gone, the burdened feelings; they might be at some point, he thinks — he doesn’t know — but in the present it’s as though there’s merely something restricting their reach. He knows that there’s more, knows that he has felt more, but how that felt is suddenly unfamiliar in a way that makes it incomprehensible. 

The needle, in the meantime, continues in its path. The picture in front of him doesn’t change at all, Severus notes that he’d maintained eye contact with the Dark Lord for perhaps longer than he ever had — he wonders if he blinked at any point, and presumes he had, because he doesn’t know how long it went on. 

It threads through memory. The Dark Lord peels it apart layer by layer until it looks a bit like nothing, separates the unwanted bits and pulls them along down, too.

There’s something different each time He repeats the process. The picture of those memories, too, doesn’t change at all. It's the same through his eyes; nothing is censored, nothing is hidden, nothing shifts. He knows this, still, there’s something making it distinctly unlike what it was before.

If there’s any punishment in this, it’s not knowing. And yet Severus cannot count this as punishment either, when it’s not, and when the only perpetrator is the boundary between being aware and being omniscient. He is one, not the other, and that is all. No matter how many words he tries to think of, they all seem, in a sense, wrong. The memory’s been worn thinner, but how can he say that, when he doesn’t remember what the weight of it feels like?

There’s no relief, there’s no strain. The mind’s a curious thing, there’s nothing quite like it. In a way, he is confused now, without knowing why he’s confused. Or, well, he does — but not intimately, in a way that he can crack. Sometimes, when you enter someone’s mind, for a little while it’s a bit like being them, and yet there’s a persistent barrier between oneself and another which stops the true becoming, an amalgamation. It’s like that, he thinks. Suddenly, there’s a barrier between himself and himself. Sometimes the barrier between people can be shattered, other times it cannot.

A cynical, or maybe a realistic part if himself believes that his case is the latter. However hard he tries, he cannot merge into being what isn’t his anymore — become someone else. It’s the opposite of amalgamation, it’s separation. Artistic, rather than natural, crafted with expert precision. 

Severus doesn’t feel upset by the thought, which both surprises him and doesn’t. It should be an upsetting one, and to many it would, if at least melancholic. But it isn’t. It’s one of those things which you accept, because it’s not a matter of perception. What is, is, and though a state of affairs can be challenged, the truth of their existence cannot be changed. 

By the time it’s finished, he doesn’t feel all that different. Not tired, not sick, not anything, really. It’s like he’d been put out of a trance, put his focus back on everything around him, and the only thing he notes himself note is that the room is darker. Not his brain’s fault, he thinks, the sun had simply set and changed position.

He can feel the Dark Lord’s thumb move beneath his chin, His index finger at his cheekbone. His touch feels waxy and neither warm nor cold. He moves his face ever so slightly, the same way He tilts it up before setting it back into its neutral position. The rest of His thin, long fingers find their way to join the index, pressing into his skin with the same tact. It’s not a grip, moreso a caress, most of all a motion he hadn’t paid much attention to, at the time.

He hears his own thoughts, but the Dark Lord seems to hear them first. Before they’re there and formed. “You won’t remember this,” He tells him, gently. “Not as it is, anyway. Forgetting is a long process, it’s an intricate one.”

My memory feels the same, his thoughts say. It’s not the kind of projected thought he usually speaks with, though it’s one that’s heard, either way. It’s not posed to be, but it’s not posed not to. He should have been glad it was. 

The Dark Lord pauses. Lets out something that sounds like a soundless chuckle, then tilts His head with his same uncanny smile which Severus thinks suits Him strangely well. “Does it?” He asks, and Severus can’t answer the question truthfully. Neither does he think he needs to. He hears Him let out a hum like sound.

His hand moves up, that time Severus had noted it, it goes to the side of his face. His eyes remain stationary, looking at Tom's. The man motions a proper caress, before taking a light hold of his head, slowly pulling him to lay down.

He thinks that he’s not tired, and is given a response almost immediately. “You will be,” and most of him accepts that without any further inquiries. 

His eyes are covered, then. The hand moving again to hover over his eyes, and he closes them, because he assumes that’s what he’s being told to do. His vision — then and now — is dimmed to black.

The Dark Lord continues to speak in the same soft, gentle, almost comforting tone. hushed, nearing a whisper.

“It’s alright now,” He says. “Then it’ll be bad, and from then on it’ll only get worse for quite some time before it gets better again.” Then He pauses.

“I'd advise you rest,” He adds. “You’ll want to remember that feeling, at least.”