Dysphoria
In July, even the nights were warm, a muggy heat enveloping the world in a constant blanket. It was characteristic of Cokeworth to be devilishly hot in the summer and frostbite-inducing in the winter, but right now Severus felt as though the roles had been reversed.
Shivering, the thin pajamas did little to protect him from the phantom chill that bit at him from all angles. Wrapping his arms around his waist, he stumbled through the streets with nothing but an idea of where he wanted to go guiding his path.
Home.
His legs gave out only a few minutes later. He was left kneeling in the middle of an empty street in the late hours of the night, flickering street lamps and the ever-present glow of the moon illuminating the pitiful sight. His eyes were glazed and blurry as he struggled to keep them open against his throbbing skull.
Severus was suddenly all too aware of the vulnerability of his situation. Trapped in an odd place that was familiar-but-not, he had no idea where he was going and was utterly defenseless against any threats with his knees and hands trembling as he sat. His breath hitched, and he was horrified to register the burning behind his eyes as the buildup of tears. He shook his head quickly to bring himself back, bringing away the tears as quickly as they had come. He scolded himself for letting his emotions take over, even for a second.
A faint shadow blocking the lights before him was his only warning before a figure crouched in front of him, causing Severus to flinch back. Too tired to run or fight, he just gazed wide-eyed at the tight face of the woman before him.
"What do you think you're doing wandering around a place like this in the middle of the night?" Her voice was gruff, but concern tinted its edges. Severus could only stare. "You're gonna get yourself into trouble."
Her face held the signs and scars of age and weariness that had sunk in deeply throughout the years, but she also had the eyes of a mother which softened as he shivered and wrapped his arms around himself.
What a sorry sight he must've been. Reduced to a trembling, terrified mess in the middle of this random town with no real recollection of how he had gotten there in the first place. If only the dark lord could see him now. Struck with embarrassment, he avoided her gaze, opting instead to stare at his lap and clench his hands into fists in a feeble attempt to stop their incessant shaking.
At his lack of response she paused for a moment before she leaned down even more to sneak a peek at his pasty face hidden behind a thick sheet of dark hair, hanging tangled and long and obscuring his features. To his surprise and apparently the woman's as well, her eyes lit up in recognition.
"Tobias' boy? Severus Snape, is that you?"
His eyes searched hers, hoping for some kind of recognition to click in his mind, but none came. His eyes drifted to the apron the woman wore, a memory tickling the back of his mind. Stained and dirty and permeated with the stench of alcohol, the apron wasn't exactly pleasant to look at, as most things and people from this side of Cokeworth never were, but the bright red logo adorning the bottom pouch rang familiar in his mind.
The woman glanced at a beat-up watch at her wrist and her eyebrows raised to her hairline, stating dryly, “It is one in the morning, young man. You should be asleep, much less all the way out here. Did you come here with your dad, hun? Where’s he at?” Severus only shrugged in response, rubbing his arms and blinking blankly at nothing. His thoughts felt thick and muggy, crawling their way through his mind at an ants pace.
The woman seemed perturbed at his lackluster answer. Without warning, she reached up and brushed his sweaty bangs aside to rest her palm against his forehead. Instinctively, he leaned against the coolness of her hand before catching himself and pulling away. He shot a distrustful glare towards the woman, but it seems that she had found whatever she had been searching for. Clicking her tongue, the woman ran a hand through her hair as she heaved a resigned sigh.
“Well, shit.”
She gave him no time to contemplate further where he recognized her apron from as she grabbed his hand, the other grasped around his shoulder to steady him as she helped him onto unsteady feet. Not having the will to pull away despite all his instincts screaming at him for being so stupid, he stumbled alongside her as the woman ushered him into a building down the road, neon lights flashing against his eyes.
He distantly heard a bell jingle as the woman pushed open the door. The muggy air from outside thickened the second they walked in. A few patrons roared with laughter as a middle-aged man dramatically threw his arms out as he slurred and burped his way through some raunchy story, the familiar smell of beer surrounding him. Slurred conversations blended into the swing coming from a battered radio that he faintly recognized from his childhood. Severus was spared glimpses of scuffed carpet and scratched wooden furniture before he was led to a backroom, noise becoming muffled as the door swung closed behind them.
“C’mon, let’s get you settled…” The woman helped as he sat down heavily onto one of the crates, empty bottles clinking against the wood inside as he shifted uncomfortably. Turning her back on him for a moment, the woman rummaged around in a plastic container before victoriously emerging with a gray, knitted blanket, wrapping it snuggly around Severus’ shoulders before kneeling in front of him.
“Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do. You just stay here while I call your dad to come pick you up, and then we can try to sort out this fever of yours with him, alright? Sound like a plan?” At Severus' befuddled nod, she picked up the phone on the wall to dial, muttering to herself where Severus couldn’t hear, “What’s going through that man’s head, letting his kid wander around in the middle of the night all alone. Near a bar at that! I swear, when I get my hands on him…”
Tugging on a loose thread, Severus stared blankly at the wall in front of him as the woman scorned the man on the other end of the phone, letting her chatter fade into the background as he focused on the texture of the yarn between his fingers. He knew for a fact that the person on the other end of the line wasn’t his father. His father hadn’t been alive for years.
What was she getting at, saying she could contact his dead father? Was this some kind of trick to throw him off guard before she dragged him off to who knows where to do who knows what with him? She had seemed nice enough, but you could never be too sure. Severus had figured that out the hard way.
He pulled the blanket tightened over his shoulders, as if trying to squeeze the memories from his mind.
But honestly, he didn’t know if he could remember if he tried. His memories were all mashed together into a paste that he couldn’t navigate clearly, thoughts all connected like glue as he attempted to sort his mindscape to no avail. It was as if it had vanished out of his mind, replaced with a barren land full of stray memories that he couldn’t seem to catch no matter how hard he tried.
Nothing was making sense. Everything was familiar yet he couldn’t place it, and everything just seemed… off. His body didn’t even feel like his own. Studying his palms, he clenched the unbroken, untainted hands into fists as he chewed on his bottom lip. From the way people treated him to the unfamiliarity of his own body, he didn’t even feel like himself anymore.
Well, at least that wasn't an unknown concept for him.
Hogwarts had never been the escape he hoped it would be in his youth. He remembered once, when he was young and naive, swearing to himself that things would be better once he got there. He would finally have a place where he belonged. He would have friends who weren't embarrassed by him and a family who wasn't afraid of him and who actually noticed his presence.
He would spend long nights with his head between the pages of his mother's old school books that he had snuck from the attic and his mind in fantasies of another life with a new him.
A second chance at the life he was living then, tainted by sad eyes and tangled hair and hanging bodies and empty houses and beer bottles and mumbled prayers while clutching a cross to his chest, praying to God, please, why couldn't you just make me normal and-
Severus took a shuddering breath and huffed out a small laugh before he could stop himself. The woman glanced over in question but he ignored her, staring holes into the wall.
Of course, his wishes never came to fruition. That wasn't how life worked. You only get one chance and you're stuck with the life you get, no matter how crappy it may be and how easy everyone else got it. Most of the time. Rather ironic, actually, having his whole view of life be so drastically altered when he was eleven only for it to flip right back on its head decades later due to the boredom of God.
Anger welled inside of him as he clenched his jaw, frustrated at the confusion consuming him. Hell, he didn't even know if how he got here was even the work of God or not. The more he wracked his brain for answers, the more it throbbed against his forehead and caused waves of pain to wash over his whole body. Weakness and weariness filled him as he struggled in vain to work things out.
A hand rubbing up and down his back had him unconsciously relaxing against his better judgment. The woman, having hung up the phone and sensing his distress, had knelt next to him at some point and tried to comfort him. He felt zoned out beyond his control, and gave up on trying to bring himself back down to Earth.
Minutes passed by in a blur. Every so often, the woman stood up to peek outside the door impatiently and shoo away other workers who tried to peek in and see what all the fuss was about. She seemed anxious, her eyes glancing back at him and his glazed over eyes with an alarmed look.
Finally, on one of the rounds she visibly relaxed, waving a hand urgently towards herself to someone outside. Grabbing the person tightly once they came in reach, she dragged them the rest of the way into the room.
"Get in here, for Christ's sake. He's gotten worse since I called you. Poor kid damn near looks like he's about to drop dead…"
Severus thought he didn't have the energy to be surprised anymore, but as he drifted his gaze lazily up to the man who he hadn't laid eyes upon in years, he felt as though all the breath had been knocked out of him.
His father's jacket had been thrown on hastily and the zipper hung open, the wearer not bothering to close it in his rush. Muddy work boots tracked footprints on the tile floors as he crouched before him, grasping both of his slim shoulders firmly and ducking to stare at him in the eyes.
"Where the hell were you?" The man's jaw was tight, but Severus was jolted by the emotion in his voice. His voice was deep and scratchy and familiar, but it was thick with fear and distress. It was probably the most emotion Severus had ever seen in his father when he was sober.
The man paused, as if waiting for an answer, but continued lowly when none was given. "I was about to call the police, you know that? You were missing for almost 24 hours, with no note, no nothing. You just disappeared from the house in the middle of the night, just gone and, God, I thought-"
He cut himself off by pressing his lips together and exhaling sharply. Instead of being scolded further, Severus found his face pressed into the broad shoulder of his father who wrapped his arms around him in one of the only hugs he had ever gotten from his father, an unaffectionate person by nature. One of the few traits he and his father shared.
"It doesn't matter." He mumbled into his son's hair, almost speaking to himself. "We’ll talk about that later. All that's important is you're here now. You're fine. You're alive."
For the first time since he arrived in this strange new world, Severus didn't even bother fighting the tears that rolled down his cheeks. Allowing himself to bury his face into the warm shoulder, his body shook with wet sobs and hiccups, crying so hard that his stomach clenched with nausea and his head pounded with agony.
His voice came out shaky and high when he spoke, whispering broken apologies over and over against his father's chest. What he was apologizing for, he had no idea. Worrying his father? Dying the first time around? All he knew is that he was alive, his father was alive, Lily was alive. It was too much for him to handle, much less comprehend.
His father tightened his hold on him, near cradling him like a baby as Tobias glanced in alarm towards the woman who gazed sternly back, not offering any sort of help. Even when he was an actual baby, Severus had never been the type to cry. It was, to say the least, unnerving for the man to see this reaction come from his stoic son.
Maybe it goes to show how little he really knew him.
Putting their past distance aside, Severus unconsciously relaxed into his father's arms. For once, he allowed himself to let his guard down and feel that maybe things would turn out okay after all.
Maybe he was relaxing a bit too much. He hadn't been held like this in such a long time. Though he registered his father's voice urging him to speak, the words scrambled inside his mind and his vision began to blur with something other than tears. The voices around him raised in panic, but he couldn’t find it inside him to care as a wave of calm washed over him. The events of the night finally catching up to his battered body, he couldn't even tell when his eyes slipped.
~~~~~
The overwhelming darkness consumed him. Pressing his knees to his chest, his pale body felt drastically out of place in the sheer nothingness of his surroundings. The ground beneath his feet felt wet, but no splashing sound could be heard as the silence rang out clear and loud.
Despite having no memory of this place, it felt… calming. The emptiness of the outside seeped into his brain as he glanced around, worries gently seeping out of him until they vanished entirely, as if they had never been present in the first place.
He inhaled deeply, with no air entering his lungs, and just sat. Relishing the peace and nothingness.
The man didn't know how long he sat there. It could have been minutes, hours, days or years and it would've made no difference to him. His back did not ache from his hunched position, nor did his eyes burn from staring unblinkingly into the abyss.
A puff of air tickling his neck knocked him out of his state, as he turned his head uncaringly towards the spindly figure behind him.
It towered over him, dripping steadily with black fluid that oozed slowly out of the holes that permeated it's ashy white skull. Despite this, he could sense their eyes boring into his own, invisible yet he could almost visualize amusement twinkling within them. Somehow, it's finger was dry when it traced his cheek, and the chill of its touch broke through the void his senses had left behind.
"Are you ready?"
It's eerie smile should have had him paralyzed with fear, struck dead on the spot, but as it's jaw creaked with the effort and it's blunt, flat teeth ground against one another, he felt an odd sense of loss. Cupping his face in one hand, fingers of bones and ash curled around his chin as it manually turned his head over to another figure that had somehow appeared.
The new person was significantly smaller than himself, still as a board as they kneeled with a blank face. His hair was a dark mess, tangled and matted, and his scrawny legs pressed against his chest as he curled in on himself. Within the open air of the void around them, they looked so tiny.
Unconsciously, he felt himself walking towards the young one. Coming to a stop right before them, the boy did not look up to see who dared disturb them. He didn't react at all. Swallowing slightly, he crouched slowly before the small figure. His knees felt stiff as the child didn't budge. Hesitantly, he reached a hand out, positioned to grasp their shoulder-
"You didn't answer me." Severus' hand froze just inches away as that crackly voice called out again. "Are you ready?"
"Ready for what?" He murmured. His voice should've come out almost silent, barely a whisper leaving his throat, but it rang resonantly through the emptiness.
The voice sounded almost exasperated now. "Don't tell me you don't know who you're looking at right now." The creature curled it's bony hand around the small boy's skull, it's fingers curling around the tangles of hair to lift his head up and reveal the rest of his face.
Dark eyes bruised by shadows and glazed over with an unseen fog stared back at him, so similar to his own but so different at the same time. For the first time since he entered this meaningless state of existence, an unrecognizable emotion seeped into his chest as his eyes searched the child’s - no, his own - face. He didn’t know what he was looking for. He had just never realized he had once looked so… powerless.
Severus' throat suddenly felt dry as he stared down at his younger self, their pitiful stature and form emphasized by the looming one just behind his shoulder. Severus could feel it's eyes boring into his face as a slow grin grew on it's own, unnaturally wide as it observed the interaction between two points in time.
"You… How am I…”
“You’d think that you would be used to seeing the past by now. I know being in my domain can be jarring, but come on. I’ve given you days to prepare yourself. Or at least you would have had days to prepare yourself if you stopped passing out and dying. This is, what, the third time?” The figure scoffed as it came closer, crouching down next to Severus who had not taken his eyes off of his younger form before him. The creature’s mood seemed to shift as he examined the two of them in interest.
“Still, I can’t say this is something I do very often either, so I suppose I'll cut you some slack just this once.” The creature said, before giving Severus an almost mischievous smile and nudging him. “You’re actually the first person I’ve done anything like this with. You should be honored, you’re taking my timeline virginity. I’m certainly a killer of a catch, if I do say so myself.” It paused as if waiting for a reaction, but Severus just blinked sluggishly.
It coughed awkwardly, it’s ribs audibly rattling from the unnatural force. “Right. Tough crowd. Whatever, it wasn’t one of my best puns anyways.”
The silence stretched a moment further before, before the creature filled it again, tone more serious than before. “So, you’re probably wondering how this whole thing’s gonna work out. I mean, there’s obviously two of you, so I bet you’re thinking of this as a time-turner type of situation where there’s two of you in one timeline.” Finally, Severus turned to look at the being, to find a strangely somber expression on it’s otherwise empty face. He hadn’t had much time to ponder the specifics of his situation, more focused on freaking out and protecting his own mind from collapsing in on itself in confusion, but his curiosity peaked as he thought about how abnormal his circumstances were.
“If that is what you’re thinking, then I can confidently tell you that you’re somewhat right.” Severus furrowed his eyebrows at the ambiguous answer, but the figure had turned away, opting instead to attempt to comb out the tangles in the baby-Severus’ hair with their fingers. Despite what would have been a painful ordeal, the child didn’t even flinch. “Indeed, there are two versions of you in this timeline. Currently, there’s the you from 1998, and then there’s the you from 1969. And before you ask, I will not tell you why I chose this time or why I chose you specifically to be granted this second chance. That’s for me to know and for you to lose sleep over.”
“Now, this is where the similarities between your situation and time-turners end.” Seemingly giving up on the hopeless rats nest, the creature instead grasped the child’s chin instead, directing his face in Severus’ direction. “As you can probably tell, nobody is exactly home in this kid’s body now. Unfortunately, I had to kick him out for a little bit while you got accustomed to your new body. I figured I could do that for both of your sakes. Trust me, I can tell you from experience that having somebody invade your body while you're still inside it isn’t exactly a pleasant experience.” It cringed, before shaking it’s entire body in one quick movement as if to shake off whatever memory came to mind. “Unfortunately, you’re just gonna have to get used to it. You two are gonna have to share this body for a while.”
“I… I’m sorry?” Opening and closing his mouth for a few moments, Severus shook his head as if that would fix his obviously faulty hearing. “You can’t possibly be serious.”
“Oh but I am.” The creature snickered, and patted young-Severus’ cheek softly. “This mind is about to become a two-bedroom apartment. Whether you like it or not.” Severus scoffed in disbelief, his mouth running before his mind could catch up.
“That’s not physically possible. Sure, someone can go into other people’s minds for a short amount of time, but performing Legilimency on anybody for that amount of time? They’d go insane within a day. Their brain would become too scattered to even be accessible anymore. Even the most talented Occumens in the world couldn’t hold up against it, much less an untrained child.” He started to say more, but was cut off by the creature tsking quietly.
“You’re thinking about this in terms of wizard’s magic. Contrary to popular belief, wizard’s magic is hardly even a spark in comparison to the flames that the Earth’s magic contains. What limits you is child’s play for most magical creatures. What you deem impossible is only the tip of the iceberg on what the rest of the universe can do. What I can do.” It shook its head in mock disappointment. “Honestly, did you really think that someone like me would be held back by the same chains that restrain you? I may have been a wizard once, but those days are long gone.”
The creature grew quiet for a moment, examining their own hands made of bone and dust. Their expression changed minisculely, but not much emotion could be shown on the face of a skull. Bringing themselves back to the present, the creature grinned its unsettling smile as it patted Severus’ head, smoothing his hair back in an almost comforting motion.
“Anyways, you don’t need to worry your pretty little head about it! I’ve got it all taken care of, so you just need to sit back and let me take the wheel.” Sensing Severus’ lingering skepticism, the creature huffed. “Look, I suppose it’s a little bit like Occlumency. Humans’ minds as a whole are generally made up of one thing: memories. You and little-you are the same person. There’s no other soul to fit into his own, just his older self with all the same memories and presence. You aren’t going to be searching his mind, you will, essentially, be a part of his mind. So, instead of you being an invader…”
“...I’d be a collection of memories.” Severus pondered the idea as the pieces began to come together. “Like a Pensieve. When I go into his body, it’ll be like he’s looking into one and he’ll see all of my memories. Except…” He paused as he hit a snag in his thought process. “Wouldn’t I just disappear then? If he sees all of my memories, you’d just essentially fuse our souls. He’d just turn into, well, me.”
The creature hummed. “You’re on the right track. Think of it this way. When you enter his body, you are going to like a… blanket. Don’t give me that look, just let me finish. As a whole, you are still a functional piece. Sure when you look closely, you can see the stitches and the yarn, but the blanket is the main attraction. Now you are also the old woman who made the quilt, with your needles being personal experience, and little-you is your young protege. He doesn’t know the intricacies of the yarn, nor the patterns of the stitches. He doesn’t have any needles either, so he relies entirely on your demonstration to learn how to make the quilt.”
Severus quirked an eyebrow, and flatly replied, “So I’m the one who shows him my memories. While also being the memories. And I also have to not show all my memories at once, despite being the literal personification of them in his mindscape.”
“You are still you. Like I’ve said, all humans exist as memories, but that’s not all you see when you look at someone, is it? It just takes time. He cannot learn to knit in a day, and by default he cannot experience all the memories at once. You take it stitch by stitch, and slowly unravel the quilt. By the end of it all, the quilt is gone but you are left with one who knows how to create it, and simultaneously one who knows how to avoid recreating the quilt. This is how you will change your fate.”
Severus pursed his lips as he turned the words over in his mind. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet and resigned. “I’m going to die once I’ve shown him all of it, aren’t I?” The creature looked at him for a moment, before looking down at their feet and swishing them in the liquid coating the floor absentmindedly.
“You’ll still exist. Just… unraveled. You will subsist within the memories you’ve shown him, but yes. For the most part, there will be little left of the man you once were.” It’s bones ground against each other as it formed a fist, and they turned to Severus in uncharacteristic guilt. “I understand if you would like to take it back. I should’ve told you earlier. If you no longer wish to go through with this timeline-”
“...It’s fine.” Severus interrupted. He glanced over at the young boy before him, before looking back at the other with a slight smile and repeated himself firmly. “It’s fine. This is all I asked for. I don’t care if I will remember it, just as long as he does.” He swallowed dryly. “I have time now. That’s all I ever wanted. And maybe he’ll get to live the life I wanted to live this time around.”
The creature looked taken aback, but finally nodded in confirmation. Raising a hand, a small light began to glow within the void. It flickered gently, before slowly increasing to a steady light as it rested within its palm. As it vibrated with pure energy, Severus realized in awe that this must be what a human soul looked like.
Turning to the young boy they cradled in their lap, the creature placed the thrumming soul against his forehead before holding its own hand atop it. Gently, they pushed down against the boy’s skull as the soul seemed to almost melt into his forehead. As it sank all the way down, his head glowed residually for a few moments before Severus caught the absent glow relight inside his black eyes, bringing the boy back to life before they slipped shut with a sigh.
The creature’s palm remained on his forehead as they raised their other arm out in Severus’ direction. Their signature grin fell into place as they repeated the first question they had asked him once he got there.
“Are you ready?”
If he claimed that he grasped their hand with no hesitation, he would be a liar. Being prepared for a new life (and death, in his case) was completely different than putting it into motion, and fear still coated his insides like poison as he looked into the holes where the creature’s eyes would have gone.
All it took, however, was a glance at the sleeping boy in their lap, another example of the dead come back to life within this second chance, to make up his mind. This was the only chance he had. If he had made wrong choices all his life, this was his one opportunity to make the right one for once. Not only for himself, but for everyone else that would be saved alongside him as well. Steeling himself for his fate, he clasped the hand of the creature determinately.
“As ready as I'll ever be.”