Dark Side Challenge: Re-Integration (Snape/Lupin, Adult)
Title: Re-Integration Pairing: Past Snape/Lupin (references to canonical Lupin/Tonks and Snape's feelings about Lily) Rating: Adult for the elements that make it dark. There's no explicit smut. Words: ~3850 Warnings: Character death. Pain. Post-DH and only barely AU. Challenge: Dark Side of Lupin/Snape Summary: After barely being saved at the end of the battle, Severus finds himself at the mercy of the Ministry and its 're-education' program for people like him. Disclaimer: Severus Snape and his friends and colleagues were not created by me. A/N: Written for the Dark Side challenge, to the prompt "Resurrection Stone." This is actually the second fic I wrote for the prompt, because the first one needs work that I'm not doing a very good job of managing right now. It may or may not come clear before the end of the month; if it does, I'll post it, too. Thanks to vimeslady and leni_jess for beta and reassurance.
Re-Integration
I suppose this might be a dream, before I awaken from my self-imposed removal from the moment, but I shall assume it is not, and that in fact, I ought to explain myself to you, since you asked.
If you are a psychiatrist, you are enjoined to say so, if I bother to query, are you not?
I shall further assume your failure to answer means you do not know, which implies you are not a psychiatrist. The other option is that you do know, and the law has changed, in which case I am more deeply mired in disaster than I already know, and nothing I say will make the situation worse. However, I have not yet asked the question directly, so I put it to you now: are you a psychiatrist, and, a separate question, are you in the employ of the Ministry of Magic?
Your muteness will have to suffice, much as I would prefer an affirmative statement in the negative.
So, to begin.
They would have known, had I lied.
That, actually, was not the biggest problem. Aside from the reflection before me, which was impossibly wrong and entirely unacceptable in every possible way, there was this: to my knowledge, it is not yet clear that I can no longer deliberately lie to them, and I didn't wish to make it known. Had I answered the question, however, this would have been learned in an instant.
Which left me with a conundrum, and one I was quite certain I couldn't resolve in the subsequent three seconds.
I had only one option, and it was all I could do not to roll my eyes at myself as I took it.
Fortunately, any hint of an eyeroll was disguised by my collapse to the ground.
As consciousness faded--I can hardly fake a collapse, but it's not difficult to cause oneself to lose consciousness by any number of means magical and mundane--I was lingeringly aware this only delayed my problem, but I hope it bought me long enough to think of something. If, in fact, the problem exists; it has only just now occurred to me that if they believe I maintain the capacity to lie under the influence of the pharmacopeia of potions that remain in my blood even now, the moment itself was pointless.
And yet, I still cannot answer the question in any fully-truthful manner without consequences which I am unwilling to tolerate.
My new life, for all that it is one I never hoped nor expected I would live to see, is in many ways depressingly familiar.
Ah, but I've assumed you knew the beginning of this story, and perhaps you don't, if you are neither psychiatrist nor employee.
After the battle, during which I was to have died, I woke, my body frail beyond the telling, my hair as silver as you see it now, my skin dry and thin and so fragile as to tear from incautious movement on the sheets, my memory frustratingly blank and shadowed in places. It was a week and a half before I gleaned enough from the fragments of speech I heard around me--the other patients, the nurses, the occasional visitors--to have any sense of what had happened, and several days more before anything about the manner and method came clear.
I expect you've heard the story, the published version, but just in case, the bare-bones explanation is this: Potter had returned, just in time, and with just enough in his pockets, to keep me holding tenuously to the indescribably thin tendril of life remaining in me. It wasn't a combination anyone sane would have tried: a bezoar in the wound, which ought not to have worked, but as the wound was the source of the poison, I suppose there's a certain logic; dittany shoved in on top, a mangled and poorly-executed version of the sung counterspell he'd heard me use once before. A handful of other things--a phial of pepper-up potion down my gullet and pieces of the dreadful sweets the Weasley boys made, the healing halves alone--and a goodly splash of desperation, and he kept me alive just long enough.
St. Mungo's used more traditional methodology, which tore the holes in my memory and robbed my body of strength and resilience both.
I'm not sure whom I dislike more, for the imposition.
But I digress, though I do appreciate the snort of agreement. I assume it was agreement. You're quite disinclined to comment, aren't you? Are you making notes? But you've no quill.
I've no idea what to make of you, but then, I often find myself at a loss at the behavior of others. I shall continue.
Eventually, the blabbing nurses and uninterested surgeons realized I was alert and aware--incompetent, all, they are, to have taken so long--and commenced re-education.
In case you should be under the impression this was some sort of effort to repair the damage to my mind, it was not; re-education is the term the new Ministry is using to mean brainwashing former Death Eaters such as myself. This is deemed a kindness, allowing us to be re-integrated into society, although if my understanding is correct, so far not one such re-integration has been successfully effected.
I might, here, were I so inclined, launch into a discourse on the topic of efficacy and permanency of personality-alteration, but suffice it to say that I am certain there are a number in the Ministry who are not aware of the methods employed by those staffing the re-education office. Also, I see by your expression that you don't approve of such methods. I'm glad to learn I am speaking to a man of some decency; it's depressingly rare.
These 'lessons,' as they are called, are occasionally pleasant enough, when it by accident or design happens that my instinctual response matches that which they hope to find. The rest of the time, it's somewhat less immediately dreadful than protracted exposure to the Cruciatus curse, though I suppose cumulatively it's equally as dismal, and that would be true for anyone; given the state of my body I can hardly bear it.
In any case, today's exercise was a test.
Of course, to explain in what ways I appear to have failed, I shall need to go back further. This has been characteristic, of late, that I fail to consider where I need to go, in order to effectively begin. I am not certain whether this is a symptom of my unusual recovery, or a side-effect of the program of treatment I continue to undergo.
A moment, then; I should like to restart only the once. All right, I have it.
Are you familiar with the Ministry's official position on inversion? It is one largely of denial, but where it is mentioned, the concept meets with derision and discomfort, and it would not be an overstatement to assert that the re-education program quite vehemently dissuades the pupil against any such unnatural attachment.
Am I making you uncomfortable as well, then?
Of course I am. If you haven't had reason to learn of the policy and the unstated position, you probably have been among those for whom the avoidance of the topic seems perfectly natural; you feel only those stirrings which have been deemed right and natural, and as they aren't proscribed, it is difficult to imagine what it would be like for the inclinations of the body to be forbidden as they are the invert. It follows, then, that you aren't one against whom this training would be necessary, which explains your discomfort with the unfamiliar topic.
Yes, I do mean 'against,' as it would be difficult for me to consider the images and reinforcements used, in this regard among others, to be 'for' me. I suppose it could be argued it is to my benefit to become excellently conditioned to expect and return female consideration, as this will hasten my removal from the re-education program; however, I would return that it is to my detriment to make me hate that which I love, when I am unable to learn the reverse emotion.
Do think on it; I've a pressing need to empty my bladder, and I am not, as yet, strong enough to abstain for any length of time. I shall return shortly.
Unless this is, in fact, a dream, in which case I expect I shall shortly awaken, drenched and to-be-berated, and possibly not return at all.
I expect the former, because expecting the latter is not well for my emotional standing. If you are standing in order to assist me, don't. I don't need your help.
--
My bladder is greatly relieved, and you remain, so I shall henceforth work under the firm assumption this is real.
Where was I?
Ah, yes. The Ministry objects to homosexual tendencies, and has taken pains especially in the re-education, or at least, in mine, to see to it that I show nothing of the sort. Nothing has been said on the topic, of course; to mention it is as poorly viewed as to engage in any of the associated offenses.
I've made you uncomfortable again.
Stop denying it; you've commenced squirming in your seat, and only the most ill-mannered of adults cannot sit without wriggling for twenty minutes at a stretch.
In any case, they're using the Mirror of Erised as a sort of measuring device, and this afternoon it was time for me to tell them what I saw as I looked into the glass.
It is my understanding that so far none of the re-educated has properly expressed his, or her, though there are few women amongst our number, burning and overriding desire to see a peaceful society in which blood status and heritage are viewed as irrelevant, and the pure and mixed-blood among us live in perfect harmony.
That this is unlikely to specifically be anyone's deepest desire appears not to have occurred to them, and my single effort to explain it fell on ears that were willfully deaf; therefore, when it was also not what I saw, I knew better than to say so.
What I saw, in point of fact, was not, precisely, a desired future, though it was a reality for which I do feel desire.
I mean to say, it's also a vision of a happy past, and one I cannot regain; I fail to understand why the mind will project such impossibility as one's fondest hope, since in my lucid moments I routinely focus my hopes on those things which are possibly-attainable.
Yes, this is why I said earlier I did not hope to remain among the living. It was, obviously, possible, but the odds were so vanishingly slim as to make the hope a wasted one, in my estimation.
But I've gone off the track again. The potions, you see. They make my thought processes cloudier than would be ideal.
What I saw most clearly demonstrated that I remain as much as ever the pervert they have hoped to untrain, and I've no wish to tell them it, because the notion of entertaining another round of education as draining and demoralizing as that which I have already endured makes my heart sick and my stomach churn.
I find I cannot bring myself to state in bald words what I saw; perhaps, after all, you are here to trick me into the revelation. That I have certainly already damned myself seems to make no difference to the disinclination.
This is absurd. I saw myself with a lover, one who, I have learned from the newspapers, also died in the effort. I saw myself with him, both of us young and whole, vigorous and enthusiastic and able-bodied, despite his scars and my own. It was a long time ago.
Speaking of time, it is time that I have another phial of the potions that ostensibly are at work healing me; the nurse will be along shortly. Perhaps you had best absent yourself for the time being. Yes, we can take up again later, when I've been appropriately dosed and prodded and probably sent to the re-educators for a brief assessment.
--
You're back. I'd thought perhaps you'd considered it not worth your while to wait about for an inverted invalid such as myself to tell the poor story of his exciting morning before a magical glass.
These things are all relative, yes; this is my point. For most, it would be merely a somewhat ridiculous encounter with one's own psyche, or perhaps an opportunity to engage in some self-examination. For me, it was the high point of my week until I found myself faced with the opportunity of telling my story, except, of course, for the part where I was required to manufacture a crisis.
However, my life is in many ways unlike the lives of 'most,' and therein lies the difference.
But here you are, back to hear the rest. Did you have a good lunch, whilst I was engaged?
…What is that?
The what? That's ridiculous, and no, I cannot take it no matter how you urge; they do not allow us to accept gifts here.
I fail to see what it is you want that I should do with it, in any case.
Take it back. I've already said you can't leave it here. Take it, or I shall throw it at you. Look, the stone is already cracked, and--bugger. Bugger. I should have known the old man was involved in more than he said, and who the devil are you? I'm certain I know you, even if your face isn't one I recognize. I've no wand, so I cannot force revelation, but I would like to know.
There, when your fingers brushed my palm…
Ah, the snort, a bit ago, that wasn't agreement, was it, Potter?
I see I've guessed correctly. And do stop being dramatic; I hadn't expected you to shove a mythical object into my hand with hardly a word of explanation.
What can you possibly have in mind to do here, besides continue your decade-long efforts to torment me? Yes, yes, eight years is not a full decade; I was approximating, and still, you don't answer my questions: what are you doing here, and why are you carrying that? And where on earth did you get it? Clearly, from Albus; that much I can guess even in the state I am in. However, I am certain you are not the one who broke into his vault.
Why are you so reluctant to speak? I've never known you to be reticent before.
I suppose he must have left it for you, then. I see I've got it right again. You've never been much of a liar and that face doesn't do it any better than your real one.
I still don't know what you could have in mind, nor why you've offered me a legendary object of untold power. I suppose you've the other two, as well? The--bugger, yes, you have the wand, and you've had the bloody cloak since you were a child, have you not?
That's it, then: you've come to taunt me.
Well, you're certainly not offering an alternate explanation.
Perhaps this is, in fact, nothing but a dream. A nightmare, I suppose, depending on the scope.
Perhaps I lost consciousness before the mirror, and have never regained it.
Perhaps I never woke, after the battle, and this is all the fevered imaginings of a mind in limbo, all taking place in the course of an hour as the blood slowly seeps away.
No?
Then explain.
Merlin. Stop. You're making a hash of it. I fully expected as much; you've never been possessed of the capacity, either of intellect or of will, to simply tell a story from the start, and you've not the excuse of hovering in the very footprint of death, now, do you. Start at the beginning. Fortunately, I have little besides time, speaking for myself. My jailors--my doctors--will be along again at some point, and your Polyjuice will wear off eventually, so get to it.
Yes, yes. I know what it does. This is why it's the sort of thing that ought never to be placed in the hands of a child. It's the only reason I'm considering keeping it, you know.
Yes, of course. The mirror brings no one back; it's merely a reflection of hope. It isn't interactive.
Of course it was Lupin--surely you'd guessed as much. It matters little; he is quite dead, and I am nearly the same.
And what is that supposed to mean? I've already explained that my rational capacities and faculties are a bit disordered, have I not? Perhaps if you were to simply state what it is you intend.
I see.
And how do you propose to steal me away?
You've everything worked out, have you? And a place to stow me, away from the prying eyes of my teachers and their Ministry supporters.
Of course. If anyone would work out independently how to perform the Fidelius Charm, it would be Miss Granger. I haven't seen anyone so gifted at magical theory since I was a student myself. If you tell her I said that, I will curse your testicles with boils; I believe I can manage as much wandless.
I can't survive, without the potions they give me here. I am not strong enough, and may never be entirely able to go without. Assuming their ingredients are fresh and the technique excellent, I calculate at least three years before I am hale enough to live independently.
And you know it.
You know it.
And that's what this is. You won't, or can't, say it, but you're offering me a choice.
No, the least you could do would have been to let me die away unattended, bleeding into the scuffed floor with its reeking dog-hair and wolf-piss and its miserable dark boarded windows.
So you've already done more than that.
But now, you've come to offer the choice. I can stay here, brainwashed and punished, too feeble to leave or resist, with the eventual chance of some sort of survival, or I can leave with you, and in place of the potions that blunt my pain and push back the worst of the damage a millimeter at a time, you offer the poor substitutes you can acquire on your own, and the placebo of spending all my time with a man who is dead, who will comfort me until I join him.
I gather you knew when you arrived that today was an important day in my rehabilitation?
Miss Granger again, I assume.
Your offer is tempting, I must agree.
But have I the right to call him to my side for some indeterminate period? He'd a wife, as I recall; his priorities would lie elsewhere.
Ah, yes, ethics. I have them. That they didn't always align so very tidily with your own is irrelevant to the issue of their existence, wouldn't you agree?
And of course, he has nothing but time, either, but the question remains, I believe. Is it right that I ask him to help me end it? It's a hard thing to ask of someone.
I find I must consider, and I grow weary. It has been a busy day.
Come back, tomorrow, Potter. Come back tomorrow, and tonight, enjoy your greatest triumph: you have posed a question to which I did not immediately know the answer, for which I was unable to immediately balance what I wanted against what was right. Yes, come back tomorrow, and I shall give you my answer.
We shall have tea.
But now, I must rest. I tire too easily, and if I don't lie down, by four my head will be splitting despite their best efforts. Tomorrow.
--
Ah, three o'clock, and just on time: tea.
What do you mean, I look different? You aren't my usual nurse, but you seem familiar. Do I know you?
I fear my memory is not what it once was.
I beg your pardon. I don't seem to understand the question.
It is a very nice ring, though.
Broken, I fear. But quite old, isn't it? Perhaps it would bring something from a jeweler, at least for the setting. Maybe for the stone, if they can cut around the damage to make two smaller stones.
Of course I'm ill. This is why I'm in hospital, I expect. My head hurts a great deal, but that's to get better, I'm told.
The mirror? Why, yes, just this morning, I… but we shan't talk about that. It was broken, too.
Of course I'm certain. It showed something dreadful. Something no one desires. It can't have been right. They explained it all.
I'm certain you do not want to know.
These are topics not discussed in polite company and--no, no, of course I would never. If you continue to discuss such things, I shall have to ask you to leave.
No, I'm not going with you.
No, we didn't discuss it yesterday; yesterday I was quite indisposed. Quite indisposed.
Yes, I'm sure. I don't even know your name, do I? How could I go with you?
That's better. Yes, sit, and we'll have our tea. I knew a Potter, once, you know. He married the woman I loved.
Yes, it was a long time ago, and there's been no one since. It's all right; I've been busy. Besides. One day, I'll find the right girl. After I'm well. After the mirror stops showing me dreadful things. After my memory settles a bit and my head stops hurting all the time.
You do seem familiar. Perhaps something about the eyes.
To whom are you speaking? Is your Patronus verbal, then, that you speak to it--oh, no, it's leaving. Perhaps it's less interested than you are in the situation's ethics, whatever that might include.
What are you doing?
No, I believe I said I didn't want to go. I said I was sure. Nurse! Nurse! I'm being abd--
…Where are we?
Potter?
Where are we? My head hurts.
And who is she? That won't cure the headache; it's much worse than a simple pain potion will manage, and if that's all you have, I can't imagine why you thought this was a good idea. Besides the bit about kidnapping.
And why have you brought photographs of the man from the mirror? How did you know… Potter, I told you. I didn't want it. I swear, I didn't want it. It's almost time for my potion, Potter, and my headache grows worse.
Putting the ring on my finger doesn't absolve you of responsibility, you know. The headache requires treatment, and the images in the mirror won't help anyone.
Potter? The pain potion is dreadful. Your chemist deserves stoning. I can't think how this could possibly help.
I can't think at all; my eyes are starting to water.
Perhaps this is all a dream. A nightmare, depending on the scope.
Perhaps if I just lie down, it will all fade away.