Into the Sun by WhiteCotton Title: Into the Sun Author: WhiteCotton Pairing: Severus/Harry Rating: PG-15 Word Count: 750 Warning(s): *Dark; elements of torture* Summary: Written for atypicalsnowman's challenge on Severus Sighs: In one hour, write a short story (how short is up to you) wherein Severus starts at point A and ends at point B. How he gets from A to B is your choice. Point A: Severus is in a Death Eater Meeting and Voldemort has just told him that everyone knows he is a traitor. Point B: Severus is sitting in a cottage somewhere in Scotland and someone walks into the room. A/N: Beta read by the challenge mistress herself, with my thanks.
I do not own or make any money from the characters or situations belonging, in all rights, to JK Rowling.
Into the Sun
The Dark Lord steps closer to where Severus is lying, his feet slide – slip-swish, slip-swish – nearer, just another kick away now and Severus' senses swim, his eyes blur, as he tries to focus.
“How very amusing, Severus.” Not amused at all. In fact there is nothing of amusement in the Dark Lord’s tone; but there is malice, there is hate, and Severus blanches. “Such a little thing you are, my dear friend ... my dear traitor. Infinitesimal...”
The Dark Lord circles – too small; too close. Severus braces himself and then jerks, biting his lips when a glossy red-tipped boot brushes his foot. He grunts on an exhale as the pain spears up his leg, up his spine and gasps – choking, vomit-tasting gulps – through the roaring, bowled through a jagged surge of pain. Closing his eyes, he prays for the cottage in the darkness.
“... Inconsequential.”
Severus throws up again, his stomach writhing, heaving on nothing but his own body. He can feel the shake in his arms, in his back; he can feel the smooth wood of his desk under his hands, tucked under the eaves and splashed gold by a warm May cheering happily through the window.
slip-swish, slip-swish
He bucks as the Dark Lord flicks his wand and – he needs to see it, to see behind him, to see the wand? – casts.
The pain streams and torrents, strands joining the others in a miasma of mind-piercing, devastating anguish and agony.
The cottage. Safe. Cottage.
“But what to do with you, my traitor ... that is the question, is it not?”
Throbbing everywhere, each miniscule part of him is heavy and pounding as the agony ebbs to a gut-wrenching pulse.
Trying to see what is happening, the need to know, is consuming; but even the fragile movement Severus manages disturbs the heavy, simmering pain into a boiling mass again. Instead, he wanders over to the bookcase in the corner, humming, and taps along the spines, looking. Shameful tears run a course down his cheeks, and it is the impotency of them, the hurt to his pride that expels a sob before he can catch it.
“My ... Judas ...”
He hears the crushing of silk robes, and knows the Dark Lord is crouched behind him, fostering the trembles and shakes, shattering the simmering anyway. Severus gasps on it, panting a litany of fingertip titles – Cowper’s The task; Leviathan; Graduale; Shriveni’s Lexicon; Milton’s Paradise Lost ...
He hears Harry calling him for lunch and considers ignoring him, enticing the exasperation into his study, into the May sunlight on his desk, but another Cruciatus changes his mind.
A kaleidoscope of pain screams along every nerve, jerking his shattered foot and wrist into brighter colours – Fuck! His lips work rabidly to change the litany from books to a sticky chatter, a pleading, begging Harry!
Then hands cup his face and he melts into them.
“Shall I kill you do you think? ... Advise me, my erudite traitor ... Come on. It’s cold, but it’ll dry up!”
The wand digging into the back of his neck prompts him and he spits blood as he wheezes, as he spits out, “Kill me.”
“What?” Harry asks, his voice threaded by both worry and realisation. “Severus, come back to me, now. You’re safe.”
Breathing on a sigh, he relishes the hands, ultimately gentle, caressing, and caring on his cheeks. They leave moist from the sweat pricking his skin and move to take his arms.
“Severus, you’re safe. Remember? We got you out of there.” Harry is anxious, Severus can tell. “We’re at the cottage, yes?”
Yes.
The cottage.
Safe.
Blinking, Severus feels the boil-to-simmer-to-numb, leaving him light and adrift for a moment. He is safe; he is free. The world cants back to normal and he almost staggers with the relief of it. Just in time, he manages to grab on to the shelves and steady himself. It is in the past, and everything is good now – he is good.
“Thank you,” he says. “I’m all right now. I’m here.”
Harry smiles and takes Severus by the arm, leading him slowly, carefully through the ray of sun dissecting his study and towards the door. “It’s ham salad, to celebrate the nice day.”
Severus grips Harry’s sleeve, inadvertently catching the tender skin of his arm, but he doesn’t – cannot let go. Luckily, Harry is too generous and loving to mention it.