elmyraemilie (elmyraemilie) wrote in snape_potter, @ 2014-07-17 22:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | summer challenge14 |
Summer Challenge 14: Echoes of the Dark (General)
Title: Echoes of the Dark
Author: elmyraemilie
Other pairings/threesome: None
Rating: General
Word count: ~400
Theme chosen: My own
Warning(s): PTSD; the tragedy of the Malaysian Airlines plane shot down over Ukraine today.
Summary: Harry's memories are not always so well-buried.
A/N: Unbetaed and grim. I don't have it in me to be cheerful.
It was a beautiful sunny day. The puffy clouds, what few there were, coasted on the winds aloft, winds that trailed a gentle breeze along below them. The grass was green and flowers bloomed; there were birds in the trees and on the fences, going about their business, merry and songful.
For Harry Potter, none of that existed. He huddled in bed with the curtains drawn. The news from Ukraine had come across the wireless just as he was about to take his broom out for a fly in the lovely summer air. He stood, clutching the broom, listening to the newsreader say that hundreds of innocent people had been sent to their deaths because...because some human being, some person, some actual breathing man or woman, had pulled a trigger or pushed a button or typed the word "FIRE" onto a computer screen; had done it for some putrid, festering cause.
All he could see, eyes open or closed, was the burning castle and the rows of the dead. All he could smell was smoke and fear. And all he could hear was Molly Weasley, wailing over the body of her dead son. He couldn't go out in such a world, where no matter how hard you fought it, evil came back again and again. There was never a final triumph, no matter what he'd done, or what anyone before him or after him had done. Every battle won by good was countered by evil's gain; it was all, all the suffering and strategy and sacrifice, all for nothing.
The door cracked open, and quiet footsteps crossed to the bed. With a creak of springs, Severus sat down beside Harry, curled and shrouded as he was beneath the sheets. Harry felt the gentle touch of that long-fingered hand on his hair.
"Harry? I heard the news. How can I help you?"
Harry just shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. After a moment, the bed springs creaked again. There was the sound of boots being removed, and the rustle of cloth. Then Severus shifted the sheet a bit and curled up behind Harry, one shirt-sleeved arm resting lightly around his waist. "It is a terrible, terrible thing. Our battles were long ago, but the war still rages on. May I stay with you a while?"
Beside him, Harry shifted back into the curve of his body a bit. Severus settled against him and sighed his name; behind Harry's tight-closed eyes, a tiny spark of light crept in.