FIC: Shards of Me
Title: Shards of Me
Author: ashiiblack
Pairing: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Rating: R
Prompt: Freudian
Warnings: Character deaths, angst, graphic images
Summary: After the war, Harry gets a bit unstable and - through his dreams, falls for a dead man.
Author's Notes: I knew I didn’t want to do an Oedipus complex when I picked this prompt, so I decided to focus on Freud’s life and death theory, as well as an extremely literal version of his dream theory. I’m not sure where this came from, as I generally write much happier things than this, but, this was where my muse kept taking me whenever I went to write. Special thanks to icicle33 who betaed this when it was a complete and utter mess. I believe I shared 5 or 6 versions of this same story over and over again and she was a real champ about it. Much love!
“We’re supposed to try and be real. I feel alone and we’re not together. And that is real.” -”Understanding”, Amy Lee
May 1st, 1997
“Look at me,” you whisper, cupping your cold hand on my right cheek.
Those are your last words and as good a confession of your love as I will ever get. I watch, large tears fall from my eyes; your head relaxes, and your hand slowly drops from my face.
Part of me believes that you are going to heal, that you have taken precautions to avoid situations like this.
You must have taken some potion that will negate the effects of the snake venom--that you have Blood Replenishing potions, working through your body as Hermione and I sit here in the Shrieking Shack with you.
I have no time to mourn. You have given me a set of memories. A battle is raging inside Hogwarts. I must return.
Present day, February 13th, 2001
They tell me: “Harry, he was in love with your mum.” I know better. I know you love me.
Now, I look into the mirror and fail to recognize my own reflection. I used to be skinny and pale. Do they even have words for what I am now? Perhaps I have somehow become an Inferi--your lost, dead marionette, ready to do your bidding.
My skin is gray and sallow, my cheeks sunken in. I do not bathe anymore - what is the point anyway? You never bathed and you seemed to get by just fine.
After the first time I try and kill myself, they send me to the Doris Dunphey Ward in St. Mungo’s. That is their way of saying the suicidal mental wing. I have been here for just over a year.
I was not like this at first.
After the war, I went through many Mind Healers. They needed to be sure that there was no lasting emotional damage from the battle; my report came back clean.
Honestly, if you ask me, that’s bollocks. Anyone who is in the midst of battle, in the darkness of war, is forever scarred.
Fall 1998
After the war is over, I begin dreaming about kissing you, kissing for hours, feeling your warm skin beneath my fingertips. I feel your long hair, rub my nose against yours. It is a feeling unlike anything I could hope to experience.
Then, I open my eyes. My green eyes meet your black ones, and for a moment, everything is perfect.
I suddenly realize I am kissing rotting flesh. I scream, and through your decomposed face, I see misery and loneliness.
I keep the dreams to myself. Ginny and I have been living together for two months, and I doubt she wants to know that I dream about snogging our dead Potions professor.
Every night.
When I dream of you, I am no longer disgusted by you or your appearance. Maybe I have grown accustomed to it, or maybe it truly no longer matters.
I don’t care that you are dead. All I know...is that...I want you, and I will take you in whatever form I can get.
One night, the dream spins out of control. We move past the kissing and go straight to the fucking. You blindfold me, telling me to “just feel.”
You are gentle, taking the time to peel off every article of clothing with the smoothness of silk. I almost come when you start preparing me. It is obvious that your long fingers have talents other than measuring potions ingredients. Oh, how I have longed for this moment, yearning to have you inside me.
When you enter me, you let you a tiny sigh. I know this feeling well; somehow, after living all of these years, I am finally complete. I know that you are with me - forever.
After we both climax, you collapse on top of me. This is perfect. I know now that I love you. I always have. It is so obvious. Frankly, I am shocked that I had not seen it before.
Present day
Falling in love with a dead man is not possible. Deep down I do know this, but somehow, I manage to anyway. Perhaps this is the main reason they put me in here; I spoke of you...as if you were still alive.
And you are.
In my dreams.
I see you every night. I have even adjusted to the fact that you are slowly decomposing. I suppose it makes sense. After all, you did die.
Slowly, I reach out and caress the mirror. There are several small cracks in the left-hand side. I savour the feeling of the cracks at my fingertips, small dents next to the smooth glass.
I know not who or what caused the flaws in this mirror, but for some reason, it brings a sense of closure to my mind.
I am not the only thing broken in this room.
Spring 1999
I leave Ginny before she has the chance to leave me. I have to be faithful, only to you. That night, I slice my wrists for the first time.
Ron and Hermione are mortified. They are astonished that I have gone months like this without them noticing. At first, they think it is war-related PTSD.
They send me to a Mind Healer named Loren Stroehlein. She is a kind witch, who seems to empathize with me, even though there is no way she could know the horrors and pleasures I see at night.
Out of the blue, she asks if I am in love.
“Yes,” I respond. My voice fills with emotion for the first time since we have been meeting.
“What is her name?” she asks curiously.
I shake my head slowly and chew on my tongue, trying not to laugh. “It’s a man,” I explain.
“Do I know him?”
“You may have. His name is Severus Snape. We’ve been involved in an affair for months.”
“You left Ginny, so you could be with Severus,” she says slowly. This is less like a question and more of a confirmation.
I nod and offer her a small smile. “I am in love.”
They lock me away immediately.
Present day
I have little time. There is a one hour window from when the next Healer will be in to check on me.
Glancing around, I lift the mirror and throw it to the ground. It smashes into smaller pieces. I watch the light from the candles in the room glint off of the tiny shards.
There. I lift a shard the size of a soup spoon from the ground and press it firmly to both my wrists. I stare at my reflection the entire time. Blood drips off my wrists, staining the wooden floor.
For just a second, I tear my eyes away from my face to watch the trails of blood that go down my arms. They look like little rivers on a map, the map of my body, the map of my history. The map that once was.
Looking down at the floor, I briefly feel guilty that I am making the cleaning staff’s job more difficult. It will not be easy to clean all of the blood on these wooden planks, to clean off my remains.
I have already lost so much blood. The wounds sting, but it feels liberating. This is because I know where I am going and that I will see you there. This makes everything, all of the death I have seen, all of the Healers I have met with, worth it.
Fall 1999
I look into my mental condition, studying both Muggle and wizarding theories.
One theory describes Eros and Thanatos. Essentially, Thanatos is a death wish, wishing to re-enact a traumatic event. We all hold an unconscious desire to die.
Because I am alone so often now, I do a lot of reflecting on this subject. I want to know what is causing this. Is it Voldemort? Watching you die in my arms?
I laugh as I realize how many traumatic events I have experienced in my life. These days, I laugh a lot. A chuckle here and there keeps them thinking I’m at least happy.
Eros is the wish to preserve life, the urge to continue living. It is what makes you run when in danger, what makes you seek out companionship to escape loneliness.
Eros, in its purest form, is driven by sex. Passionate, animalistic, uninhibited sexual urges. It seems as though I only have these urges when I sleep, when you visit me.
As a child, I wanted to live, to defeat Voldemort for so long that I was not sure how to do anything else.
You, the man I love, are dead. Why continue living? Why focus on balancing out Eros and Thanatos, when the one thing I care most about...is gone? If I can only see you in my dreams, why live in reality?
Present day
You are doing something I have never seen you do before. You are real. You look just as you did before the snake attacked you. Your dark hair is no longer matted with blood and dirt but is clean and shiny. Your robes are also fresh. Your face is not rotten but alive.
A smile turns your lips up. I too, smile, and reach out to touch you.
My body can no longer move as quickly as I think it can. I fall to the ground, shaking. I feel feverish, and I know I am sweating.
You sweep over to me, cradling my head in your lap. I breathe a sigh of relief. “Of course, you still want me,” I whisper, amazed at how faint my voice sounds.
“Always,” you whisper back. “We can be together now,” you urge, stroking my forehead.
“Always and forever,” I answer.
“Look at me,” you tell me softly.
My eyes glance upward at your face as my vision slowly fades to darkness.
I can finally see you.
FIN
Author: ashiiblack
Pairing: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Rating: R
Prompt: Freudian
Warnings: Character deaths, angst, graphic images
Summary: After the war, Harry gets a bit unstable and - through his dreams, falls for a dead man.
Author's Notes: I knew I didn’t want to do an Oedipus complex when I picked this prompt, so I decided to focus on Freud’s life and death theory, as well as an extremely literal version of his dream theory. I’m not sure where this came from, as I generally write much happier things than this, but, this was where my muse kept taking me whenever I went to write. Special thanks to icicle33 who betaed this when it was a complete and utter mess. I believe I shared 5 or 6 versions of this same story over and over again and she was a real champ about it. Much love!
“We’re supposed to try and be real. I feel alone and we’re not together. And that is real.” -”Understanding”, Amy Lee
May 1st, 1997
“Look at me,” you whisper, cupping your cold hand on my right cheek.
Those are your last words and as good a confession of your love as I will ever get. I watch, large tears fall from my eyes; your head relaxes, and your hand slowly drops from my face.
Part of me believes that you are going to heal, that you have taken precautions to avoid situations like this.
You must have taken some potion that will negate the effects of the snake venom--that you have Blood Replenishing potions, working through your body as Hermione and I sit here in the Shrieking Shack with you.
I have no time to mourn. You have given me a set of memories. A battle is raging inside Hogwarts. I must return.
Present day, February 13th, 2001
They tell me: “Harry, he was in love with your mum.” I know better. I know you love me.
Now, I look into the mirror and fail to recognize my own reflection. I used to be skinny and pale. Do they even have words for what I am now? Perhaps I have somehow become an Inferi--your lost, dead marionette, ready to do your bidding.
My skin is gray and sallow, my cheeks sunken in. I do not bathe anymore - what is the point anyway? You never bathed and you seemed to get by just fine.
After the first time I try and kill myself, they send me to the Doris Dunphey Ward in St. Mungo’s. That is their way of saying the suicidal mental wing. I have been here for just over a year.
I was not like this at first.
After the war, I went through many Mind Healers. They needed to be sure that there was no lasting emotional damage from the battle; my report came back clean.
Honestly, if you ask me, that’s bollocks. Anyone who is in the midst of battle, in the darkness of war, is forever scarred.
Fall 1998
After the war is over, I begin dreaming about kissing you, kissing for hours, feeling your warm skin beneath my fingertips. I feel your long hair, rub my nose against yours. It is a feeling unlike anything I could hope to experience.
Then, I open my eyes. My green eyes meet your black ones, and for a moment, everything is perfect.
I suddenly realize I am kissing rotting flesh. I scream, and through your decomposed face, I see misery and loneliness.
I keep the dreams to myself. Ginny and I have been living together for two months, and I doubt she wants to know that I dream about snogging our dead Potions professor.
Every night.
When I dream of you, I am no longer disgusted by you or your appearance. Maybe I have grown accustomed to it, or maybe it truly no longer matters.
I don’t care that you are dead. All I know...is that...I want you, and I will take you in whatever form I can get.
One night, the dream spins out of control. We move past the kissing and go straight to the fucking. You blindfold me, telling me to “just feel.”
You are gentle, taking the time to peel off every article of clothing with the smoothness of silk. I almost come when you start preparing me. It is obvious that your long fingers have talents other than measuring potions ingredients. Oh, how I have longed for this moment, yearning to have you inside me.
When you enter me, you let you a tiny sigh. I know this feeling well; somehow, after living all of these years, I am finally complete. I know that you are with me - forever.
After we both climax, you collapse on top of me. This is perfect. I know now that I love you. I always have. It is so obvious. Frankly, I am shocked that I had not seen it before.
Present day
Falling in love with a dead man is not possible. Deep down I do know this, but somehow, I manage to anyway. Perhaps this is the main reason they put me in here; I spoke of you...as if you were still alive.
And you are.
In my dreams.
I see you every night. I have even adjusted to the fact that you are slowly decomposing. I suppose it makes sense. After all, you did die.
Slowly, I reach out and caress the mirror. There are several small cracks in the left-hand side. I savour the feeling of the cracks at my fingertips, small dents next to the smooth glass.
I know not who or what caused the flaws in this mirror, but for some reason, it brings a sense of closure to my mind.
I am not the only thing broken in this room.
Spring 1999
I leave Ginny before she has the chance to leave me. I have to be faithful, only to you. That night, I slice my wrists for the first time.
Ron and Hermione are mortified. They are astonished that I have gone months like this without them noticing. At first, they think it is war-related PTSD.
They send me to a Mind Healer named Loren Stroehlein. She is a kind witch, who seems to empathize with me, even though there is no way she could know the horrors and pleasures I see at night.
Out of the blue, she asks if I am in love.
“Yes,” I respond. My voice fills with emotion for the first time since we have been meeting.
“What is her name?” she asks curiously.
I shake my head slowly and chew on my tongue, trying not to laugh. “It’s a man,” I explain.
“Do I know him?”
“You may have. His name is Severus Snape. We’ve been involved in an affair for months.”
“You left Ginny, so you could be with Severus,” she says slowly. This is less like a question and more of a confirmation.
I nod and offer her a small smile. “I am in love.”
They lock me away immediately.
Present day
I have little time. There is a one hour window from when the next Healer will be in to check on me.
Glancing around, I lift the mirror and throw it to the ground. It smashes into smaller pieces. I watch the light from the candles in the room glint off of the tiny shards.
There. I lift a shard the size of a soup spoon from the ground and press it firmly to both my wrists. I stare at my reflection the entire time. Blood drips off my wrists, staining the wooden floor.
For just a second, I tear my eyes away from my face to watch the trails of blood that go down my arms. They look like little rivers on a map, the map of my body, the map of my history. The map that once was.
Looking down at the floor, I briefly feel guilty that I am making the cleaning staff’s job more difficult. It will not be easy to clean all of the blood on these wooden planks, to clean off my remains.
I have already lost so much blood. The wounds sting, but it feels liberating. This is because I know where I am going and that I will see you there. This makes everything, all of the death I have seen, all of the Healers I have met with, worth it.
Fall 1999
I look into my mental condition, studying both Muggle and wizarding theories.
One theory describes Eros and Thanatos. Essentially, Thanatos is a death wish, wishing to re-enact a traumatic event. We all hold an unconscious desire to die.
Because I am alone so often now, I do a lot of reflecting on this subject. I want to know what is causing this. Is it Voldemort? Watching you die in my arms?
I laugh as I realize how many traumatic events I have experienced in my life. These days, I laugh a lot. A chuckle here and there keeps them thinking I’m at least happy.
Eros is the wish to preserve life, the urge to continue living. It is what makes you run when in danger, what makes you seek out companionship to escape loneliness.
Eros, in its purest form, is driven by sex. Passionate, animalistic, uninhibited sexual urges. It seems as though I only have these urges when I sleep, when you visit me.
As a child, I wanted to live, to defeat Voldemort for so long that I was not sure how to do anything else.
You, the man I love, are dead. Why continue living? Why focus on balancing out Eros and Thanatos, when the one thing I care most about...is gone? If I can only see you in my dreams, why live in reality?
Present day
You are doing something I have never seen you do before. You are real. You look just as you did before the snake attacked you. Your dark hair is no longer matted with blood and dirt but is clean and shiny. Your robes are also fresh. Your face is not rotten but alive.
A smile turns your lips up. I too, smile, and reach out to touch you.
My body can no longer move as quickly as I think it can. I fall to the ground, shaking. I feel feverish, and I know I am sweating.
You sweep over to me, cradling my head in your lap. I breathe a sigh of relief. “Of course, you still want me,” I whisper, amazed at how faint my voice sounds.
“Always,” you whisper back. “We can be together now,” you urge, stroking my forehead.
“Always and forever,” I answer.
“Look at me,” you tell me softly.
My eyes glance upward at your face as my vision slowly fades to darkness.
I can finally see you.
FIN