The Road Not Taken; Insomnia Challenge
Title: The Road Not Taken
Challenge: Insomnia Challenge
Team: Death Eaters
Rating: PG-13
Length: 5 X 100
Warning: 500 words of WTF?
Summary: Between sleep and awake, there is a place to hide.
A/N: Usual disclaimers apply. Y'all know by now I take orders from DMuse, so my take on Insomnia doesn't fit, but I have to write what I was given.
He lies in his cell, and awaits the kiss.
He awoke from his near fatal attack in Azkaban, guilty of murder, espionage and treason to the Wizarding world. Not even the great Harry Potter’s personal entreaty would sway the Wizengamot.
The guards are cruel, but leave him alone. They bring him rancid food, which he doesn’t eat. They taunt him from beyond his prison walls, but he doesn’t hear.
He is somewhere between the waking and sleeping world, trying to remember Lily, which he can’t. Potter has all his memories.
And so he lies in his cell, awaiting his kiss.
“All he does is sleep,” he hears them say.
“Open the door,” a voice commands. It is soft and feminine and sounds both strong and afraid.
A gentle hand touches his arm. “Professor?”
He isn’t there; he is traveling down that road, the path he was never supposed to take…
He is Gryffindor, in love with Lily, friend of James and Sirius and Remus. His Patronus is an eagle, and together Wings, Mooney, Padfoot and Prongs are the Marauders, both terrors and darlings of Hogwarts.
He fights for the Greater Good, and he and Lily are in hiding with Harry…
“Professor!”
He doesn’t respond. He is no one’s professor. He is Lily’s husband, and they are fighting Death Eaters, fighting and losing because he never learned the power games and the cunning tricks to keep himself and his family alive. He is a young man, dying for the Light, watching his beautiful wife weeping over his pain-wracked body, because Voldemort does not wish his enemies to die quickly and quietly.
The Dementors, rapturous in their desire to draw every ounce of beauty from his soul, sent him down that road not taken, the road he was never supposed to take.
He is floating in that place between awake and dreaming, afraid to wake to the Dementor’s kiss, afraid to return to his other death. It is that place that opens him like a flower, and as much as he tries to fight it, he is caught between. He cannot feel the pain of living or the agony of dying.
There is a kiss; it feels soft at first, like a lover, but it pulls him forward, sucking the fear and pain and Severus from him, until he is no longer the man he was or the man he will become.
He awakens like Sleeping Beauty to a soft world of morning sunlight and clean sheets. A wild-haired witch smiles at him through her tears. “We did it, Professor! We overturned the sentence. You’re free.”
Severus stares in disbelief. His noble life as a martyr never was, his dark life as a spy is behind him. “Am I dreaming?” he asks, hopefully. The young woman smiled and shakes her head.
“No, sir. You are very much awake.”
He looks around this new free world, afraid to close his eyes. He will never sleep soundly again for the rest of his life.
Challenge: Insomnia Challenge
Team: Death Eaters
Rating: PG-13
Length: 5 X 100
Warning: 500 words of WTF?
Summary: Between sleep and awake, there is a place to hide.
A/N: Usual disclaimers apply. Y'all know by now I take orders from DMuse, so my take on Insomnia doesn't fit, but I have to write what I was given.
He lies in his cell, and awaits the kiss.
He awoke from his near fatal attack in Azkaban, guilty of murder, espionage and treason to the Wizarding world. Not even the great Harry Potter’s personal entreaty would sway the Wizengamot.
The guards are cruel, but leave him alone. They bring him rancid food, which he doesn’t eat. They taunt him from beyond his prison walls, but he doesn’t hear.
He is somewhere between the waking and sleeping world, trying to remember Lily, which he can’t. Potter has all his memories.
And so he lies in his cell, awaiting his kiss.
“All he does is sleep,” he hears them say.
“Open the door,” a voice commands. It is soft and feminine and sounds both strong and afraid.
A gentle hand touches his arm. “Professor?”
He isn’t there; he is traveling down that road, the path he was never supposed to take…
He is Gryffindor, in love with Lily, friend of James and Sirius and Remus. His Patronus is an eagle, and together Wings, Mooney, Padfoot and Prongs are the Marauders, both terrors and darlings of Hogwarts.
He fights for the Greater Good, and he and Lily are in hiding with Harry…
“Professor!”
He doesn’t respond. He is no one’s professor. He is Lily’s husband, and they are fighting Death Eaters, fighting and losing because he never learned the power games and the cunning tricks to keep himself and his family alive. He is a young man, dying for the Light, watching his beautiful wife weeping over his pain-wracked body, because Voldemort does not wish his enemies to die quickly and quietly.
The Dementors, rapturous in their desire to draw every ounce of beauty from his soul, sent him down that road not taken, the road he was never supposed to take.
He is floating in that place between awake and dreaming, afraid to wake to the Dementor’s kiss, afraid to return to his other death. It is that place that opens him like a flower, and as much as he tries to fight it, he is caught between. He cannot feel the pain of living or the agony of dying.
There is a kiss; it feels soft at first, like a lover, but it pulls him forward, sucking the fear and pain and Severus from him, until he is no longer the man he was or the man he will become.
He awakens like Sleeping Beauty to a soft world of morning sunlight and clean sheets. A wild-haired witch smiles at him through her tears. “We did it, Professor! We overturned the sentence. You’re free.”
Severus stares in disbelief. His noble life as a martyr never was, his dark life as a spy is behind him. “Am I dreaming?” he asks, hopefully. The young woman smiled and shakes her head.
“No, sir. You are very much awake.”
He looks around this new free world, afraid to close his eyes. He will never sleep soundly again for the rest of his life.