WIP: The Prisoner (1/?)
Title: The Prisoner (1/?) Pairing and characters: Remus Lupin/Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall Rating: Mature Warnings: none (for this chapter) Word count: ~ 2,100 Summary: The war is over and Remus Lupin returns to a strange new world. At Hogwarts, Minerva McGonagall struggles with the threat of the loss of magic while the castle is in a severe state of disrepair. Remus is traumatized after his stay at a prison camp for werewolves and haunted by dreams of a mysterious woman. Severus Snape is hiding in the dungeons. Author's Notes: Much gratitude to my wonderful beta, kelly_chambliss. All remaining mistakes are my own.
1.
Darkness. Darkness everywhere. Not a single shaft of light betrays a crack in the door or a curtain barely closed. If there even is a door or a window; Remus can't be sure about that. There are rumours about prison cells deep within the Dover cliffs, small caves that can only be entered with the help of a Portkey. Remus can't smell the sea; he doesn't hear the sound of waves. His own heavy breathing is the only sound he can hear and the smell of his blood overpowers every other possible smell. But however deep down below the surface of the earth they put him, they can't lock out his one true mistress. Their power is nothing in comparison with that of the moon.
He can still feel her pull; the wolf is still with him. Barely himself again, Remus doesn't know whether his pain is due to the change alone or if they have tortured him. It doesn't matter. Sleeping is all that matters now, sleeping and regenerating enough to be able to face them as a man.
He can sense her the moment he wakes. She can't have been there before; Remus would have noticed that scent in any circumstance. Fear. Fear combined with the distinct scent of woman. The wolf growls inside him, and Remus thanks every deity he's ever heard of that she hasn't been there before. He raises his hand and reaches into the darkness.
Hogwarts was a giant at the horizon, a stone ogre that threatened with walls, ceilings, floors, and still more walls. In the wan light of the February sun it looked grey and sick, and, for a mere second, the thought amused Remus that it might throw up on the lawn, ridding itself of the too-fat meals of the past, secrets still dripping with grease, lumps of flesh badly chewed. Remus wrapped his coat tighter around him. The feeling of guilt bit worse than the cold. He should have known better than harbouring such thoughts.
Hogwarts had been his haven. He had found relative freedom within its walls and a modicum of peace. He had found friends here. He had found a home. He should never forget that.
Remus told himself all this in the same fashion in which a religious man might say his prayers. The words dropped from his lips as a monotonous row of beads, crystallizing in the winter air before evaporating into nothing.
Hogwarts was his haven still. He still had a friend here and a home. If a man like him couldn't find peace, if he was doomed to remain a prisoner for the rest of his life, it wasn't the fault of the castle.
Remus had said his prayers. He should be rid of his demons for a couple of hours. He bowed to the giant and turned on his heels. Snow crunched under his feet as he walked.
The walls were wide apart in the Great Hall, the ceiling was high. Remus nevertheless wished them gone. He inched closer to the big hole in the wall where what little they had left of their magic had proven powerless again and again.
"Some wounds need longer to heal than others," a voice behind him said. For a split second Remus wondered whether the castle deemed him worthy of a little chat. The light touch of a hand upon his shoulder disabused him of that notion.
"Minerva." Schooling his face to reveal nothing of his discomfiture, he turned around. "What happened to your voice?"
"It's nothing," the headmistress said in a hoarse whisper. Smiling a tight-lipped smile, she linked arms with Remus and steered him towards the staff table. "Let's see what the elves have come up with today."
Remus knew better than to resist. He let her guide him into the chair next to hers, allowed her to lift the lid off his plate and nodded when she commented on the food, her praise interrupted by several fits of coughing.
One had to be an inveterate optimist or experiencing a severe taste disorder to muster enthusiasm for the soggy cabbage and burnt potatoes that came with a grey mass that might or might not have been minced meat. Mixing the ingredients on his plate until they looked like one of Snape's foulest concoctions, Remus admired Minerva's self-discipline. Between generous bites she discussed the unreliability of the Quidditch brooms with Hooch and comforted Hagrid over the loss of the giant squid. As Kreacher shuffled into the hall to collect the plates, she thanked him for the meal and asked the small group of students that huddled in front of the fireplace for two volunteers to help with the washing-up.
After some minor commotion two students emerged from the group and followed Kreacher out of the hall. One of them must have been a former Slytherin, Remus inferred from the moth-eaten green-and-silver scarf he wore around his neck and half of his face.
"May I have a word with you in private?" Minerva asked before Remus could manage to quietly disappear. He nodded and braced himself for the onslaught of walls in the small corridor that led to Minerva's office.
"It's Severus," Minerva said once she had gone through the hospitality routine she appeared to believe was required of a Scotswoman and headmistress.
Sipping Firewhisky sprinkled with tea and feeling warm for the first time in what seemed like forever, Remus was unwilling to let himself be bothered by the name of his erstwhile adversary. "Snape?" he asked, closing his eyes to make the walls disappear. "He died in the final battle against Voldemort, didn't he?"
When the clatter of porcelain was the only answer he got, Remus was forced to open his eyes again. Minerva sat ramrod-straight in her wing-back chair. Her expression was weary as she pointed her wand at a puddle of spilt tea on her desk. With an almost imperceptible shake of the head, she let it slip back into its holster and took a handkerchief from the sleeve of her blouse. Remembering his manners, Remus pulled a Muggle paper handkerchief out of his pocket. Their hands met on the desk.
"Thank you." Minerva straightened up again. "So you don't know? You haven't heard about Severus?"
Angry for no apparent reason, Remus shoved the wet hanky back into his pocket. "There wasn't much opportunity for gossip in the prison camp," he said, pushing the hair back from his forehead where a constant reminder of his curse was etched deep into his skin. He followed the lines of the intertwined Ws with his finger. "Besides, I barely remember anything from that time."
Minerva lowered her eyes. Her voice was hoarser than ever. "I'm sorry, Remus. So very sorry. Words can't express my -"
"Don't!" Remus interrupted her. The walls assaulted him. Breathing became a struggle. "It's not your fault," he managed to choke out after downing the rest of his Firewhisky. Squeezing his eyes shut, he concentrated on his breathing -- in and out, in and out -- and slowly, the walls retreated.
"I'm here now, and that's all that matters."
Ashamed of the pitiful sight he must have made, a grown man losing it like that, Remus quickly returned to the topic at hand. "Snape," he said in a voice that was too loud and didn't seem to belong to him at all. "Snape. What happened to him?"
Silence was more menacing even than walls. For some unknown reason Remus harboured the belief that silence, if it stretched too long, could make the whole world disappear. He knew of course that it was crazy, bordering on the insane, but since his escape from the prison camp he had turned to whistling, clicking his fingers or even talking to himself when the silence became too oppressive. He was about to give in to the urge to drum his fingers on Minerva's desk when the headmistress gave a sharp nod and finally broke the silence.
"Severus was on our side all the time," she said.
This wasn't news to Remus. Harry's speech during the duel with Voldemort was the last thing he remembered before his life became a big blur. It had to be one of fate's more bitter ironies that his most vivid memory was of something he had experienced while being left for dead on the floor. As always when he thought about the events of the Battle of Hogwarts, he wondered if it hadn't been the wolf's fight against the deadly curse that had triggered his memory loss.
Remus surfaced from his thoughts to renewed silence. Minerva looked at him over her wire-rimmed glasses as if she were expecting an answer. "You must understand," she interrupted Remus's stuttered attempts at finding something intelligent to say, "we had Harry's word on the matter. We believed Severus dead, why should we have doubted it?"
"It's a pity we can't ask Harry," Remus said. Glad to have found something to say, he repeated what had become the catchphrase in this strange new world. In the few days since his return to Hogwarts he had heard it countless times. The wording might differ, but, from the meekest free elf over the students to the staff members, every inhabitant of the castle had made a habit out of invoking Harry's name at every possible opportunity. Except for Minerva perhaps. Remus couldn't recall whether he had heard her mention Harry before tonight.
"Yes, of course." Minerva's voice was terse. "We can't very well leave him to rot down there until Harry's return, though."
"Down there?" Remus's mind was reeling and he couldn't help an uneasy feeling in his stomach. Something was very wrong. Learning about the survival of his old enemy shouldn't upset him in any way. They had buried their childhood animosities a long time ago, hadn't they?
"Hagrid discovered Severus near the gates, two days before he found you at the very same spot. He brought him here, but Severus wouldn't talk to me. He went straight to the dungeons and hasn't resurfaced again ever since.
"Remus, he looked terrible. He could barely walk. Hunched over and haggard, he was the ghost of his former self. His eyes were so empty, like the eyes of a dead man." Minerva repeatedly shook her head. To Remus it seemed as if she wanted to rid herself of the dreadful picture she had painted, a picture that crept into Remus's mind and soul and made him shiver.
"I'm not quite sure whether it's good or bad news," Minerva continued, once again tight-lipped and stern, "but he seems to have retained more of his magic than any one of us. He protects parts of the dungeons with strong wards. So far we haven't been able to find a way around them and get inside."
The dungeons were in an even worse state of disrepair than the rest of the castle. The Slytherin dormitories had been flooded, and the lake was spreading everywhere. Remus waded knee-deep in water. His teeth were chattering from the cold, and he was too exhausted to cast so much as a Lumos. An eerie light emanated from the water. It didn't help him find his way and only multiplied the threat from the walls. Remus plodded onwards with his head hunched between his shoulders, as good as blind and not knowing what he actually wished to accomplish any more. When he slammed head first into a solid wall of heat, he needed a couple of seconds to realise that he had discovered Snape's wards.
There was no door he could have knocked upon, no bell he could have rung. The wards stretched invisible. They hissed in warning when Remus came too close, and green-and-silver tendrils appeared when he touched them, setting his skin on fire. Remus's hands were covered in blisters before he finally gave up. "Snape," he called. "Snape."
Silence was his only answer. Stomping up and down to drive the silence away, Remus found a modicum of comfort in the sloshing sound of the water. He wondered what he could tell Snape in order to lure him out of his lair. He couldn't think of a single good reason to go on with this life, and so he turned on his heels and hasted away, only slowing down after having reached his quarters on top the Astronomy Tower. There he undressed and, using the very last of his energy, cast a feeble heating charm before wrapping himself in a heap of blankets on the balcony. He fell asleep beneath a sky void of stars.