Heart of Darkness (4/20)
Title: Heart of Darkness
Author: Lucius_Complex
Beta: emansil08
Pairing: Harry/Snape
Rating: R
Genre: dark fantasy, angst, adventure
Warnings: mild violence, mild horror, some gender-bending, (tasteful) OCs
Disclaimer: Characters belong to JKR, which is just as well as I would do such unspeakable things to them.
A/N: This is a fic I’m completely rewriting, and I’m posting in the hopes of finding the story a new readership J It’s really not as violent as it seems, and the storyline mostly exist within a dream-like state.
Summary: Harry looks for Snape’s hiding place. It’s not a very nice place. In fact, it’s not a place at all.
Previous chapters: 01 | 02 | 03
4
The room you wake up in is no red chamber.
Instead, there is peeling wallpaper in a sickly olive shade, a spindly stool with no back that went with the ink-stained table, and grey threadbare sheets. There is no closet, only a few crates stacked together out of which you see some greying shirtsleeves sticking out. The only truly clean thing in the room is a small nightstand which has been converted into a bookshelf.
It is a non-descript room, a room for a ghost.
Something flutters to the ground beside the bed: a photo. You pick it up and examine the sepia hues, barely making out your mother and Snape as young children. As you watch, black rims grow around Lily’s eyes, her hair shortens, and she turns into a child version of you.
Your hand is clasped around Snape’s.
‘Hmm,’ you muse aloud to the empty air. ‘I really looked like a little runt back in the day.’
You place the photograph gently on the table and walk out of the room and find yourself in a dingy kitchenette. You are slightly relieved to see Child Severus look up.
‘So. Is this where you grew up?’
The small boy bends his head to his task and does not answer. He is cooking some sort of oat paste on an electric induction cooker; there is no stove.
Perhaps his family had been leery of fire hazards around the small, independent boy.
‘I make the fires too big,’ he mumbles as he takes the enamel pot off and divides its contents into two bowls. You catch sight of old beating marks where his sleeves falls down, faded brown and crisscrossed.
‘Because of you underage magic?’ You ask as you examine the porridge he has placed in front of you. ‘That’s a normal thing to do. I used to speak to snakes.’
There is no honey or milk on the table, so you follow Severus’ example and sprinkle salt from a small tin on the table.
The porridge is perfectly cooked, but none-too appetizing. Harry eats it anyways. Severus eats expeditiously, with an economy of movements and absolutely no expressions on his face.
‘So, Severus,’ you say when the both of you are finished. ‘Do you want to tell me a bit more about your.. household? Is this where you live?’
The boy nods.
‘You’ve made it very- sensible,‘ you praise, biting off the word ‘comfortable’ at the last moment. ‘Does anyone else live here with you? No? Have you ever.. let anybody in before, besides me?’
The boy shakes his head.
‘Very good,’ you let your voice turn drop, affecting a solemn, more authoritative tone. ‘Are there people out there, somewhere; people that you talk to?’
‘No.’
‘You’ve never spoken to anyone before in all the years you lived here?’
‘No.’
You try another track. ‘Perhaps they do not speak to you. Perhaps they… do other things.’
The boy suddenly stills and makes no reply.
You plant both palms on the small table to ground yourself. A slow, tense rage creeps over you, crawling like ants over your gut; emotions you can scant afford to entertain. The child is already shifting uneasily; and in respond to his emotions the ceilings and corners of the room begins to turn squishy, as if it’s being melted by fire.
‘Severus, I know you said you don’t let people in. But does anyone come in to look for you?’
‘People,’ the child whispers. ‘They hurt me.’
‘Who?’
The child begins to hyperventilate. ‘The others.’
‘Can you tell me who the others are? The girl; you called her something-‘
‘No!’
‘Who is the Red Queen?’ you asked.
‘Harmless,’ the child Severus waved a negligent hand, ‘and the least of your worries. It is the Dark Lord-‘
Your heart lurches as you round up on him. ‘What did you just say?’
‘The Dark Lor-‘
‘Harmless. And the least of your worries,’ you seize the boy by front of his shirt and haul him up. ‘Where did you hear that?’
‘Let me go!’
‘You’re not Severus,’ you growl. ‘What have you done with the boy?’
‘I am him!’ the boy howled as his legs kicked the air. ‘Re- read your paper!’
‘What paper?’ you scowl, and drop the child to search your pockets. ‘You better not run away.’
The scroll had a new message:
The child will protect you.
Frustrated, you scribble a reply; ‘Can’t find anything. Need help’ and stuff the note back into your pocket. The boy has started crying, so you envelop him into your arms.
‘Severus, this is your mind. Not the Red Queen, nor the Dark Lord. All the power of the realm is contained within your imagination.’
‘..am just a pawn,’ he whispers into your robe. ‘Am nobody.’
‘You’re not nobody to me,’ you hold the child close and strokes the jagged hair, certain that that Snape must have been his own hairstylist as a child. ‘In fact you’re so important that while I’m in here with you, there are whole teams of people working outside. Trying to save you. You’re very important to us, Severus. And you’re very, very important to me.’
Gently you pull away from him. ‘Do you trust me?’
The boy nods, his dark eyes glistening.
‘Good, because I’m really going to need your help to stay alive.’
*