Loose ends chapter 21 - Hallucinations
Snape's hallucinations are becoming increasingly bizarre, and Harry gets angry. Mental illness, reference to traumatic events in canon, still more angst. R.
This is a work of fan fiction. The world and all recognisable characters belong to J.K. Rowling and I make no claim or profit etc
Hallucinations
Lupin woke to discover the blue rug in his bedroom had turned black. He rubbed his eye and tried to focus, his mind still confused. He reached for his glasses and the black rug became Grimmy stretched out on his side, with Snape cuddled up behind him
Lupin assumed it was Sevvy who had chosen to sleep on his bedroom floor with Grimmy. It was not something he could see the adult Snape choosing. Thinking that a forty-ish year old body would wake very uncomfortable from sleeping on a rug over a stone floor, he reached for his wand to see if he had the strength to warm and cushion the floor. As he cast the charms, Snape gave a soft moan and buried his face deeper into Grimmy’s neck. Grimmy stretched his legs out in his sleep, then relaxed again with a whine.
Lupin lay back, exhausted from the effort. He wondered about trying to get back to sleep when Snape moaned again, and Lupin realised it was more than a response to the hard, stone floor. He listened as Snape began to whimper, then suddenly cried out.
“No, no, Lupin, no.”
Lupin began to struggle upright, but Grimmy was faster, suddenly awake and pressing his muzzle into Snape’s face. Snape opened his eyes and screamed at the sight of the dog. He scrambled backwards away from Grimmy, backing himself into the corner of the room, covering his head with his arms.
Grimmy sat, looking from Lupin to Snape in confusion. His tail thumped on the ground half-heartedly. Lupin almost told him to leave. Almost. If he’d had the strength to get to Snape, he’d have gone. But Grimmy had often been successful at comforting him before.
Lupin looked at Grimmy and pointed to the cowering Snape. Grimmy moved across the room, then flattened himself in front of Snape, stretching his muzzle forwards, whining. Snape tried to draw his shaking body away further, avoiding the dog’s eyes.
“Lupin, no, please no.”
Snape was calling his name, but Lupin suddenly realised that all his focus was the dog. The dog he was calling Lupin. The dog that he was seeing as the werewolf. Lupin swore under his breath and began to struggle upright again, reaching for his wand. He needed the get to dog away from the terrified Snape.
“Grimmy, come.”
But the dog was focused on Snape. Grimmy swiftly moved his nose upwards, and licked Snape across the face. Snape’s eyes opened wide in surprise. Grimmy licked him again, and then continued, thoroughly bathing Snape’s face in dog slobber.
“Lupin, no, that’s disgusting. Stop it.”
Grimmy pulled back and looked at Snape curiously. Snape was staring back in nervousness and confusion, but the absolute terror was gone. Grimmy leaned forward and licked him again. Then he put a paw on Snape’s knee and scratched at him gently. Snape relaxed his body and his legs stretched out in front of him. Grimmy half-climbed across his lap and lay looking up at him with big eyes.
“Lupin, what are you doing?”
Snape was now looking slightly annoyed, but Lupin noticed that his hand had moved automatically to the dog’s ear, the fingers gently stroking the soft fur behind. Grimmy gave a sigh and closed his eyes in pleasure. Snape sat there, absently stroking the dog’s head, then drifted off to sleep.
It was sometimes unclear whether Snape was trapped in memories or hallucinating, but whatever it was, it continued. Snape often thought Grimmy was the werewolf or Harry was James. Then he began to mistake Andromeda for her older sister - although they looked different, there was still a distinct resemblance. On one occasion when Lucretia visited to check on his condition, he thought that she was Lucius Malfoy. Although there was no physical resemblance between the dark-haired young werewolf and Malfoy, there was, Lupin, admitted, something reminiscent in the way Lucretia stood - very upright, appearing to look down at people, even if they were taller than her. It would have been amusing if Snape hadn’t been so afraid. At first, Snape saw Lupin simply as younger Lupin, but over the next week the nightmares and hallucinations became progressively more bizarre, less connected to reality, and Snape recognised Lupin less and less. When Snape saw Lupin as Lupin, he was still suggestible, responding to Lupin’s actual words and actions, and able to be reassured. But once he saw Lupin as someone else, Lupin’s words became irrelevant. Snape responded only to the words of the person he saw in front of him, and when that was Sirius Black, there was nothing Lupin could do to comfort him.
Lupin thought he had reached the lowest point when Snape began thinking Lupin was Voldemort. Lupin had cringed at the sight of Snape grovelling on the floor, calling him “my lord” or “master”. Lupin had had his share of grovelling to the dark lord as one of Greyback’s lieutenants, and did not want any reminders. On one terrifying occasion, when Andromeda had moved towards him in an attempt to calm him, he had hallucinated being put under the Cruciatus curse by Bellatrix Lestrange. He writhed on the ground, screaming, terrifying Teddy. Terrifying them all. When the curse had evidently passed, Snape had been violently sick, then collapsed, shivering, in the puddle of vomit. Although Harry had been able to vanish the vomit, Snape was too afraid of them to let anyone help or comfort him. He had lain on the floor shaking until he finally fell asleep.
But Lupin had been wrong about the low point. The worst by far was when a desperately weeping Snape had called Lupin “Albus”.
At first, Lupin was confused. Snape’s nightmares and hallucinations had generally involved people he loathed or feared, all his worst memories in a horrific parade. But Snape worshipped Dumbledore. So why was he in his nightmares? But then Snape had fallen to his knees, clutching at Lupin’s clothes, and begun begging.
“No, please, no.”
“No, Albus, I can’t.”
“You can’t, you can’t ask that. I can’t do it. I won’t.”
“Please, please don’t ask me to do that.”
“Please, Albus, please. I can’t. I can’t. I won’t. Please.”
“Please, no, no, no.”
Snape had begged, desperate, again and again, to be released from the order to take his mentor’s life. He cried, at first softly, gradually working himself up into desperate, gulping sobs. All the while, his hands gripped the front of Lupin’s shirt.
Lupin tried to tell him that it was okay, that he didn’t have to go through with the task, but his words had no effect. Harry removed all wands but his own from the vicinity, put up a shielding ward between Snape and Lupin, and stepped back to watch. Snape couldn’t cast a killing curse without a wand - as far as they knew - but Harry didn’t put it past him to try and complete his awful duty by attacking Lupin physically.
In the end though, Snape simply collapsed to the floor in a foetal position, inconsolable. He flinched away from both Lupin and Andromeda, who he was now seeing as her younger sister. However Harry was Harry, and Snape finally accepted the young man’s hand on his shoulder. After Harry had sat beside him for nearly half an hour, Snape allowed Harry to wrap him in his arms and levitate him through to the bedroom.
When Harry emerged, his eyes were as dark as Lupin had ever seen them. He said nothing to Lupin, pushing past him, muttering to himself. Lupin’s wolf ears picked up the words, and they chilled him to the bone.
“I’ll never forgive him, never.”
“Harry, Harry, wait,” Lupin called after him, but Harry simply marched outside and apparated from the lane.
Lupin returned to Snape’s room, sitting beside the bed, looking at the now peaceful face. All trace of tears and snot had been cleaned away, his hair was neatly pushed back and the blankets tucked carefully around him. He was wearing a clean pair of pyjamas too. For someone who appeared furious, Harry had taken great care with his former teacher. Lupin gave a sigh. Like his father before him, Harry could be illogical and contradictory at times.
Andromeda brought Teddy in, along with one of his books, while she was preparing dinner. Lupin and Teddy sat quietly reading the book with the background of Snape’s even breathing. It was hard to believe that the peaceful figure in the bed had been so tortured just a short time before.
Lupin and Teddy ate dinner sitting beside Snape’s bed, and stayed there afterwards, Lupin unwilling to leave him even though he was sleeping calmly. He heard Andromeda’s knock an hour later.
“Harry’s back,” she said, “and he’s gone straight for the firewhiskey.”
Lupin nodded and handed Teddy to her. He levitated his chair and headed for the sitting room.
“Harry, talk to me, please.”
Harry turned, holding his glass.
“Drink, Remus?” he asked.
“A small one, please, Harry. It has been a rough day.”
They sat quietly with their drinks, Lupin waiting for Harry to speak.
“I went to Hogwarts,” he said finally. “I shouted and ranted outside Minerva’s office until she let me speak to Dumbledore’s portrait.”
Lupin waited for Harry to continue. When he didn’t, Lupin spoke softly.
“Did that help?”
“Not really. I had a good yell at him over what he’d done, but he was utterly unrepentant. Said it was for the greater good. Said Sna… Severus was a soldier, and soldiers are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for their cause. Said he would have given his life, had he needed to.”
Lupin sighed. He now understood the careful way that Harry had looked after Snape even though the young man had appeared so angry. It was not Snape that Harry couldn’t forgive, but Dumbledore.
“It’s true, he would have given his life. As I would have, as Albus did and as did… many others.” Lupin kept his voice carefully neutral as he spoke, not mentioning his wife. “But there are worse things to give than your life. I agree with you that what Dumbledore asked of him was unfair. Surely there was another way. Both were so skilled at leglimency and occlumency - surely they could have placed some false memories of Snape killing Dumbledore, or something like that.”
Lupin paused again, still haunted by Snape’s desperate weeping.
“I wonder if he begged and cried like that,” Harry said. “A few weeks ago, I’d have found that hard to imagine, but I realise now how close…Severus was to breaking, for so long. No wonder he’s like he is now.”
“I don’t know if he begged or not, Harry. With Albus, perhaps he did, but we can’t know how he behaved by how he is acting now. Perhaps Albus didn’t fully comprehend the burden he placed on Severus.”
“You don’t want to think badly of him, do you Remus?” said Harry, a sharpness in his tone. “Neither of you do. That’s what made me so angry, seeing what he put Severus through, and yet still he won’t hear a word against him. It’s obvious that Severus worshipped him and would have done anything he asked. Maybe I’d accept Dumbledore’s view if I hadn’t seen what I’d seen over the last few weeks. If I hadn’t seen Sevvy. But knowing how much he suffered, knowing how hurt he was… Surely Dumbledore knew.”
Lupin hung his head. He hated to admit it, but Harry was right.
“Albus knew Severus better than anyone. You are right - he must have known exactly what he was asking.”
“Do you think Severus will ever recover? It seems hard to imagine right now.”
“I don’t know, Harry. I don’t even know what recovery means for him. So much of what we’ve seen of him, the man we knew before, was part of who he needed to be for Dumbledore. I don’t think we even know who Severus really is. Actually, I don’t think even Severus knows who he really is.”
Harry gave a slow sigh.
“I used to think, when the war ended, it would be… over. But it’s not, is it?”
“No, not quite. We survived the war, but now we have to survive the peace, and sometimes that seems just as hard. When I was still in the Institute, I used to feel as if I was… some sort of loose end, just left hanging, as if life had finished with me, but couldn be bothered tidying up the ending. I think we’ve all felt like that, you, me, Andromeda, Severus, unwanted leftovers of a time that everyone is trying to forget.”
Harry nodded.
“But you don’t now?”
“No, never. Do you?”
Harry shook his head and they sat in silence with their drinks.
This is a work of fan fiction. The world and all recognisable characters belong to J.K. Rowling and I make no claim or profit etc
Hallucinations
Lupin woke to discover the blue rug in his bedroom had turned black. He rubbed his eye and tried to focus, his mind still confused. He reached for his glasses and the black rug became Grimmy stretched out on his side, with Snape cuddled up behind him
Lupin assumed it was Sevvy who had chosen to sleep on his bedroom floor with Grimmy. It was not something he could see the adult Snape choosing. Thinking that a forty-ish year old body would wake very uncomfortable from sleeping on a rug over a stone floor, he reached for his wand to see if he had the strength to warm and cushion the floor. As he cast the charms, Snape gave a soft moan and buried his face deeper into Grimmy’s neck. Grimmy stretched his legs out in his sleep, then relaxed again with a whine.
Lupin lay back, exhausted from the effort. He wondered about trying to get back to sleep when Snape moaned again, and Lupin realised it was more than a response to the hard, stone floor. He listened as Snape began to whimper, then suddenly cried out.
“No, no, Lupin, no.”
Lupin began to struggle upright, but Grimmy was faster, suddenly awake and pressing his muzzle into Snape’s face. Snape opened his eyes and screamed at the sight of the dog. He scrambled backwards away from Grimmy, backing himself into the corner of the room, covering his head with his arms.
Grimmy sat, looking from Lupin to Snape in confusion. His tail thumped on the ground half-heartedly. Lupin almost told him to leave. Almost. If he’d had the strength to get to Snape, he’d have gone. But Grimmy had often been successful at comforting him before.
Lupin looked at Grimmy and pointed to the cowering Snape. Grimmy moved across the room, then flattened himself in front of Snape, stretching his muzzle forwards, whining. Snape tried to draw his shaking body away further, avoiding the dog’s eyes.
“Lupin, no, please no.”
Snape was calling his name, but Lupin suddenly realised that all his focus was the dog. The dog he was calling Lupin. The dog that he was seeing as the werewolf. Lupin swore under his breath and began to struggle upright again, reaching for his wand. He needed the get to dog away from the terrified Snape.
“Grimmy, come.”
But the dog was focused on Snape. Grimmy swiftly moved his nose upwards, and licked Snape across the face. Snape’s eyes opened wide in surprise. Grimmy licked him again, and then continued, thoroughly bathing Snape’s face in dog slobber.
“Lupin, no, that’s disgusting. Stop it.”
Grimmy pulled back and looked at Snape curiously. Snape was staring back in nervousness and confusion, but the absolute terror was gone. Grimmy leaned forward and licked him again. Then he put a paw on Snape’s knee and scratched at him gently. Snape relaxed his body and his legs stretched out in front of him. Grimmy half-climbed across his lap and lay looking up at him with big eyes.
“Lupin, what are you doing?”
Snape was now looking slightly annoyed, but Lupin noticed that his hand had moved automatically to the dog’s ear, the fingers gently stroking the soft fur behind. Grimmy gave a sigh and closed his eyes in pleasure. Snape sat there, absently stroking the dog’s head, then drifted off to sleep.
It was sometimes unclear whether Snape was trapped in memories or hallucinating, but whatever it was, it continued. Snape often thought Grimmy was the werewolf or Harry was James. Then he began to mistake Andromeda for her older sister - although they looked different, there was still a distinct resemblance. On one occasion when Lucretia visited to check on his condition, he thought that she was Lucius Malfoy. Although there was no physical resemblance between the dark-haired young werewolf and Malfoy, there was, Lupin, admitted, something reminiscent in the way Lucretia stood - very upright, appearing to look down at people, even if they were taller than her. It would have been amusing if Snape hadn’t been so afraid. At first, Snape saw Lupin simply as younger Lupin, but over the next week the nightmares and hallucinations became progressively more bizarre, less connected to reality, and Snape recognised Lupin less and less. When Snape saw Lupin as Lupin, he was still suggestible, responding to Lupin’s actual words and actions, and able to be reassured. But once he saw Lupin as someone else, Lupin’s words became irrelevant. Snape responded only to the words of the person he saw in front of him, and when that was Sirius Black, there was nothing Lupin could do to comfort him.
Lupin thought he had reached the lowest point when Snape began thinking Lupin was Voldemort. Lupin had cringed at the sight of Snape grovelling on the floor, calling him “my lord” or “master”. Lupin had had his share of grovelling to the dark lord as one of Greyback’s lieutenants, and did not want any reminders. On one terrifying occasion, when Andromeda had moved towards him in an attempt to calm him, he had hallucinated being put under the Cruciatus curse by Bellatrix Lestrange. He writhed on the ground, screaming, terrifying Teddy. Terrifying them all. When the curse had evidently passed, Snape had been violently sick, then collapsed, shivering, in the puddle of vomit. Although Harry had been able to vanish the vomit, Snape was too afraid of them to let anyone help or comfort him. He had lain on the floor shaking until he finally fell asleep.
But Lupin had been wrong about the low point. The worst by far was when a desperately weeping Snape had called Lupin “Albus”.
At first, Lupin was confused. Snape’s nightmares and hallucinations had generally involved people he loathed or feared, all his worst memories in a horrific parade. But Snape worshipped Dumbledore. So why was he in his nightmares? But then Snape had fallen to his knees, clutching at Lupin’s clothes, and begun begging.
“No, please, no.”
“No, Albus, I can’t.”
“You can’t, you can’t ask that. I can’t do it. I won’t.”
“Please, please don’t ask me to do that.”
“Please, Albus, please. I can’t. I can’t. I won’t. Please.”
“Please, no, no, no.”
Snape had begged, desperate, again and again, to be released from the order to take his mentor’s life. He cried, at first softly, gradually working himself up into desperate, gulping sobs. All the while, his hands gripped the front of Lupin’s shirt.
Lupin tried to tell him that it was okay, that he didn’t have to go through with the task, but his words had no effect. Harry removed all wands but his own from the vicinity, put up a shielding ward between Snape and Lupin, and stepped back to watch. Snape couldn’t cast a killing curse without a wand - as far as they knew - but Harry didn’t put it past him to try and complete his awful duty by attacking Lupin physically.
In the end though, Snape simply collapsed to the floor in a foetal position, inconsolable. He flinched away from both Lupin and Andromeda, who he was now seeing as her younger sister. However Harry was Harry, and Snape finally accepted the young man’s hand on his shoulder. After Harry had sat beside him for nearly half an hour, Snape allowed Harry to wrap him in his arms and levitate him through to the bedroom.
When Harry emerged, his eyes were as dark as Lupin had ever seen them. He said nothing to Lupin, pushing past him, muttering to himself. Lupin’s wolf ears picked up the words, and they chilled him to the bone.
“I’ll never forgive him, never.”
“Harry, Harry, wait,” Lupin called after him, but Harry simply marched outside and apparated from the lane.
Lupin returned to Snape’s room, sitting beside the bed, looking at the now peaceful face. All trace of tears and snot had been cleaned away, his hair was neatly pushed back and the blankets tucked carefully around him. He was wearing a clean pair of pyjamas too. For someone who appeared furious, Harry had taken great care with his former teacher. Lupin gave a sigh. Like his father before him, Harry could be illogical and contradictory at times.
Andromeda brought Teddy in, along with one of his books, while she was preparing dinner. Lupin and Teddy sat quietly reading the book with the background of Snape’s even breathing. It was hard to believe that the peaceful figure in the bed had been so tortured just a short time before.
Lupin and Teddy ate dinner sitting beside Snape’s bed, and stayed there afterwards, Lupin unwilling to leave him even though he was sleeping calmly. He heard Andromeda’s knock an hour later.
“Harry’s back,” she said, “and he’s gone straight for the firewhiskey.”
Lupin nodded and handed Teddy to her. He levitated his chair and headed for the sitting room.
“Harry, talk to me, please.”
Harry turned, holding his glass.
“Drink, Remus?” he asked.
“A small one, please, Harry. It has been a rough day.”
They sat quietly with their drinks, Lupin waiting for Harry to speak.
“I went to Hogwarts,” he said finally. “I shouted and ranted outside Minerva’s office until she let me speak to Dumbledore’s portrait.”
Lupin waited for Harry to continue. When he didn’t, Lupin spoke softly.
“Did that help?”
“Not really. I had a good yell at him over what he’d done, but he was utterly unrepentant. Said it was for the greater good. Said Sna… Severus was a soldier, and soldiers are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for their cause. Said he would have given his life, had he needed to.”
Lupin sighed. He now understood the careful way that Harry had looked after Snape even though the young man had appeared so angry. It was not Snape that Harry couldn’t forgive, but Dumbledore.
“It’s true, he would have given his life. As I would have, as Albus did and as did… many others.” Lupin kept his voice carefully neutral as he spoke, not mentioning his wife. “But there are worse things to give than your life. I agree with you that what Dumbledore asked of him was unfair. Surely there was another way. Both were so skilled at leglimency and occlumency - surely they could have placed some false memories of Snape killing Dumbledore, or something like that.”
Lupin paused again, still haunted by Snape’s desperate weeping.
“I wonder if he begged and cried like that,” Harry said. “A few weeks ago, I’d have found that hard to imagine, but I realise now how close…Severus was to breaking, for so long. No wonder he’s like he is now.”
“I don’t know if he begged or not, Harry. With Albus, perhaps he did, but we can’t know how he behaved by how he is acting now. Perhaps Albus didn’t fully comprehend the burden he placed on Severus.”
“You don’t want to think badly of him, do you Remus?” said Harry, a sharpness in his tone. “Neither of you do. That’s what made me so angry, seeing what he put Severus through, and yet still he won’t hear a word against him. It’s obvious that Severus worshipped him and would have done anything he asked. Maybe I’d accept Dumbledore’s view if I hadn’t seen what I’d seen over the last few weeks. If I hadn’t seen Sevvy. But knowing how much he suffered, knowing how hurt he was… Surely Dumbledore knew.”
Lupin hung his head. He hated to admit it, but Harry was right.
“Albus knew Severus better than anyone. You are right - he must have known exactly what he was asking.”
“Do you think Severus will ever recover? It seems hard to imagine right now.”
“I don’t know, Harry. I don’t even know what recovery means for him. So much of what we’ve seen of him, the man we knew before, was part of who he needed to be for Dumbledore. I don’t think we even know who Severus really is. Actually, I don’t think even Severus knows who he really is.”
Harry gave a slow sigh.
“I used to think, when the war ended, it would be… over. But it’s not, is it?”
“No, not quite. We survived the war, but now we have to survive the peace, and sometimes that seems just as hard. When I was still in the Institute, I used to feel as if I was… some sort of loose end, just left hanging, as if life had finished with me, but couldn be bothered tidying up the ending. I think we’ve all felt like that, you, me, Andromeda, Severus, unwanted leftovers of a time that everyone is trying to forget.”
Harry nodded.
“But you don’t now?”
“No, never. Do you?”
Harry shook his head and they sat in silence with their drinks.