snarrymod (snarrymod) wrote in snarry_games, @ 2006-05-07 19:42:00 |
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Original poster: snarrymod
Title: Now the sky is blue.
Author: Sazzle (sazzlette)
Word count: approx. 3000
Prompt: Déjà vu (Team Angst)
Rating/Warnings:Warnings/Kinks/Ratings Pop-Up
Notes: Wow, this was ... a challenge, to say the least. I take my hat off to those of you who've churned out long stories; your dedication is impressive. Thank you so much to everyone who helped me with this; littlecup, midnight_ljc, and anyone else who had a part,but thank you most of all to cocoalatte. I love you.
Summary: Memory is precious, and it slips through our fingers like water. Some time after the world ought to have come crashing to an end, but stubbornly refused to do so, most people are trying their very hardest to forget. But there are those who'd like to remember
Memory is an odd mechanism. One might forget the contents of one's breakfast that morning, or the details of a conversation held only the day before, and yet be able to recall with perfect clarity an event that took place many years before. It comes as a surprise when a tiny piece of information sparks something in our minds, fleeting along synapses, burrowing deep into the murky reaches of our memory stores. The sense of nostalgia that can be brought about by the hint of a familiar (though perhaps long-forgotten) scent, or a sound as simple as a door closing, is overwhelming, drowning us in a sudden flush of memories long since buried.
Over the years scientists have become moderately well versed in the way the brain works, problems that may occur, and why. But one concern that continues to puzzle is that of déjà vu. It is not known what causes déjà vu, and the experiences are generally so brief, and leave no hint in their wake of their presence, that the phenomenon has largely been left to the wayside of neurobiological investigation.
One explanation attempts to explain déjà vu by a discrepancy between the short and long-term memory storage in the brain; some small instance is routed the wrong way, delaying the experience so that one may have the sensation of experiencing and remembering something simultaneously.
Of course, this cannot explain those times when the déjà vu experienced is not in fact a real memory at all.
--
It's raining again. Actually, that is inaccurate. To be raining again implies that it must have stopped raining in order to start once more, but the current downpour has so far lasted for one hundred and seventy-nine days. The same length of time, give or take, since the Dark Lord finally got offed and the Death Eaters were all shipped to Azkaban. It isn't the place it once was of course, what with the Dementors having been destroyed, but for the majority of Voldemort's followers, their broken minds are more than enough to keep them imprisoned.
Severus Snape is different. But then he always was. He's in Azkaban, just like the rest of them. Rufus Scrimgeour isn’t a man to take chances. He's the sort of man who'd favour the death penalty and corporal punishment in schools. Make sure that if they've done wrong they're damn well not going to do it again.
Huddled underneath a ragged blanket with Bellatrix's mumbled insanities on one side and her husband's on the other, many would say that Snape is right where he belongs. That is, if anyone still talked about it. If anyone talked about anything but their own misery. And if they're not complaining, they're talking about the weather, which is such a depressing subject to broach that people have learnt just keep their mouths shut.
The mood of the general populace would probably be more cheerful if there was a hero for the people to pin their hopes on, or at least their annoyance. Alright, so they may have got rid of a psychopath, but they're suffering for it in a constant heavenly deluge. Public opinion shifts quickly, as does its memory, and people are quick to forget the horror and suffering they would have been subjected to under Voldemort's reign, and instead are eager to get on with feeling sorry for themselves about the weather's reign.
Harry Potter, it must be noted, has not been seen in about six months. Coincidentally, he vanished at roughly the same time Voldemort did. The Wizarding World is, much to certain individuals' disgust, glad to see him go. If Harry was the only one capable of destroying the Dark Lord, what chance does that give anyone for destroying Potter? Should the necessity arise, of course. Not that there's any reason to suspect that it will, only that it's really rather odd when you think about it, him having disappeared along with the Dark Lord's mortality (because he was, in the end; mortal like everyone else).
But this is not a story about Voldemort any more than it is a story about Albus Dumbledore, or any of the other dozens of witches and wizards that fell during the war. And their memories will slide comfortably into disuse, some slower, some faster. They will all be gone eventually.
And so will Harry's. Harry Potter. Friend, orphan, boy bloody wonder.
--
It's cold. It's a sort of cold surely specific to Azkaban. A damp, chilling sort of cold, with sloppy, icy driven tendrils that insinuate themselves into the folds of clothing, wrap tightly around limbs, and burrow deep into the skin. It isn't the sort of cold one can escape from, nor hope to drive away with any sheer will of mind. This cold is bleak, and brewed in misery and sheer, impenetrable isolation.
There is an echo; there, can you hear it? Beneath the layers of sound. Close your eyes, and swallow the roar of the tide, the waves thrashing themselves desperately against great pillars of jagged rock. And there, underneath the dirty wreath of dry coughing and high keening shrieks from sea birds, there is the echo of footsteps. It's coming closer; the sharp click of heels on well-made boots as they click click click on the stone grey slabs. Great flat slabs like tombstones.
And now there's a different sound. A dreary shuffling. They're closer still, approaching the furthest cells, and a set of keys trills dully on a brass ring. A cell is opened, and an unresisting figure is shoved into the darkened space beyond. It's a man, and he stumbles; his wrists are bound, but loosely. Within a few minutes of being left in the cell he'll have the rope off and probably be considering hanging himself with it. It's of little concern to the guards either way.
The man is thin, far too thin in fact, and though his eyes are old his face is young. In fact he's barely more than a boy, probably not even twenty yet, but with eyes as old as galaxies. There's nothing especially noteworthy about him aside from these eyes; dark tangled hair, pale skin, thin wrists (the stretched look of having grown a lot in a short time, though he's only just six feet tall, if that). There's one thing that marks him different, but only if you knew to look. A thin silvery scar on his forehead, an immortal reminder.
Harry James Potter stands in the middle of the cell (seven feet by eight feet by sixteen feet) with his feet shoulder width apart and his hands dangling loosely in front of him. The floor and walls are dirty and damp, and there's a bundle of foetid rags in one dark corner. Harry looks away, probably deciding to save the rags for later. For when it's really cold.
--
There are damp strings of hair threading through his fingers, tangled, catching on a ripped fingernail. Damp with grease and the chill air, slick and dirty against his palm. The skin below his other hand is aging grey with dust and grime, and blotchy under his fingertips. He's pressing too hard, too hard.
In the corner, from the corner of his eye he sees, is the rope, coiled still like a snake. His hands loosen. The rope is a link, a knot, a reminder of sanity. He could take the rope and loop it around and around his pale neck, but he doesn't need to. Things aren't so very dreadful. He realises, as he slides his fingers out of the damp, seaweed-like strands of hair, that only a token fight was even offered up (the knee jerk reaction of fingers scrabbling for purchase, clawing for escape); he isn't the only one ready to die in order to leave this place.
--
Time matters little in Azkaban. Hours bleed into each other, days drain away, grey from dawn to dusk to dawn again; shifting shades of murk and grime. Harry looks more and more like a child. Cold and lonely he curls into himself, pale skin smudged and dirty, trembling with the aching chill which is driven home in every thundering crash of the sea on the rocks.
His fingers twitch convulsively as he sleeps, nightmare remembrances chasing him out of a peaceful sleep. There are things in this broken mind that would make the bile rise in your throat. There are dark things that dwell in the shattered pieces, that creep and whisper with sibilant sounds. And always his name, over and over, a mantra in his head. The one thing he has left.
The dirty bundle in the corner sits up, unfolds itself into a spindly figure, all wiry limbs and stiff joints cracking. His gaze passes over the boy huddled against the wall and if he's surprised he doesn't show it. Snape rustles his ragged robes, stiff with dirt and perspiration, flutters his sleeves ponderously like a dirty crow's wings and tucks his jagged elbows into his sides. It's dingy, but Snape's eyes are well adjusted to darkness, and he can see the silhouette of the boy, too long hair falling over his eyes, legs thin but strong with tensing muscles as his fingers curl and uncurl. A hissing whispering sound slips out of Harry's mouth, nonsensical at first, but when he breathes and his voices relaxes and slows, distinguishable as a single name.
HarryHarryHarryHarryHarryHarryHarryHarry
--
When both are awake, neither men say a word. Other cells echo with soft moans, misery that spirals through the grey shadows, piercing the darkness with blue and violet and indigo, but theirs remains silent aside from the rustle of their movements.
Snape watches Harry sometimes; learns his careful, measured movements, like those of an old man, dirty hair falling into his blank eyes, fingers twitching when he dreams; scrabbling, clawing, begging. Harry barely seems to look at Snape; certainly doesn't see him. No more than he sees the slick slimy walls, or the cracked slabs they sit on. Neither shows any inclination or sense of disapproval toward the other; though perhaps both are longing to ask why. Why.
Perhaps not.
The nightmares come frequently. They worsen with the weather; when the wind screams like a thousand lost souls calling for home, Harry screams with them, fingertips scraping against the rough stone and cradling the scar on his forehead. Snape has tried shouting, cursing, shaking him awake. The only time they ever touch, only time Snape truly acknowledges the boy's presence. But nothing changes. Harry rocks in some private madness to the torturous beat of his own mind, and Snape sits apart from him, always watching.
--
Damp strings of hair like tendrils, like seaweed, catching on fingers catching on fingernails. Damp dark hair coiled like rope on a grey neck. Dusty skin and damp strings coiled. Grease and dirt under his fingernails.
There is thick rope coiled like damp knotted hair in the corner; he can see it from the corner of his eye. The rope is a line to safety, to sanity. Safety is coiled like a snake waiting to strike. Rough beneath his fingertips. Damp and slick, fingers scrabbling for purchase.
Not so very dreadful..
--
Snape is sitting, back braced against the wall, black straggly wings wrapped tightly around his pigeon chest. His breathing is deep and rhythmic – he may be asleep, but he's a very good actor. His cheekbones stand out sharply; his face dull and heavily shadowed, and his hair hanging lank and tangled around it.
Harry sits, carefully, one grime encrusted hand balanced spider-like on the bitter cold floor, the other already somewhere in the air. It shakes, with hesitation, retreats once or twice, before moving jerkily forward, index finger outstretched. Harry doesn't even really touch Snape, such is the lighting quick agility with which he moves. He doesn’t even notice the long fingers with their vice like grip around his wrist, because he’s too concerned with convincing his heart to resume its beating, coaxing his lungs to inflate again. Snape’s off-whitish eyes stare back at him, unblinking, lambent in the darkness.
With a snarl twisting his thin mouth, Snape pushes Harry away from him, sharp fingernails biting hard and cruel into the exposed skin of Harry's shoulder. For a moment after Harry opens his eyes they're huge and empty, baleful as he throws them round the darkened cell and finally settles his gaze on Snape's furious face. As if someone had set a burning splint to tinder a spark of wrath ignites in his eyes and he flings his lean frame at Snape; biting, kicking, scratching, entirely ignorant of the vicious attempts being made in defence.
Making use of his youthful strength – strength that time in a rotting cell has drawn from Snape's limbs like water from a sponge, Harry pins Snape against the dirty floor and his fist connects with Snape's jaw with a wet smack. There is a thick, dull thud as Snape's head hits the floor hard, and his long fingers loosen in Harry's clothes, flutter uselessly these pale tips to his ragged sleeves.
Slowly, lazily, Harry crawls away. The fire is dwindling now, his eyes becoming sombre and silent once more. Quietly he curls into himself once more, and he's asleep before Snape's pained groan joins the wind's sepulchral chorus.
--
The sea seems louder tonight, though perhaps it's the howl of the wind echoing through the halls, drawing out sounds like moans of agony from the dank corners. Outside a slow muzzle of rain seems to seep through the walls, the bars. Snape lifts a hand to swipe ineffectually at the damp collecting in the hollows of his cheek. His eyes close again and he seems to fall back into the semblance of sleep he adopts every night.
Harry whimpers, low in his throat. Snape tries not to look, tries not to notice. He knows it’s probably in his best interests not to. For a moment, he even fools himself into believing that he’ll completely ignore it. As if in challenge to this, Harry's moans grow louder, more incessant. Snape crawls over the rough floor, scorn lining his face as he approaches Harry, who has his face turned to the wall. Snape realises that the boy, the idiot boy is shivering, curled impossibly tight and shuddering violently and Snape knows, he does, that it’s not all cold, and it’s not all the nightmare.
Utterly furious at himself and Harry, Snape lies behind Harry and wraps an arm tight around his waist, angrily nudging aside the slim spidery limbs and pulling Harry's body close to his chest. Harry quietens quickly, fingers still working, curling and uncurling against the back of Snape's hand.
--
The morning creeps in, grey and murky, or at least what passes for morning in Azkaban, which means that they're awake and it's marginally lighter than it was half an hour before.
Snape draws the tips of his long fingers across Harry's dirty cheek. Harry looks young; seems to be shrinking day by day in this place. There is a rope coiled in the corner of the cell, the one Harry's hands were tied with when they brought him in. Water has trickled down the wall and soaked the rope, making it slick with slime and gunge. Snape slides his fingers into Harry's tangled mop of hair and twists the greasy, dirty strands between his fingers, pulling tight until he can wrench Harry's head backward, waking the young man with a start and trapping him with the arm around his waist and a leg over his thighs.
Harry makes a low animal sound as he struggles, prying weakly at the fingers pressing into his throat, scrabbling desperately at Snape's hands. Harry doesn't move though. Doesn't throw Snape off him though he could no doubt manage to. Instead he lies and waits. Waits to die, waits to live. It makes no odds.
--
Seventy-two days. It feels like less, though only because the days have become so intermingled in Harry's head, so impossible to tell night from day. But Remus tells him it was seventy-two days, and Harry nods, and continues to gaze blankly out of the window. He's hardly had a glimpse of the sky in two and a half months, and each time he did it was as grey as the wall against his back.
Now the sky is blue. Remus said the rain finally stopped just before they got Harry out of Azkaban. Harry's stopped listening now, and Remus falls silent. Harry wonders what Remus would taste like; if he tastes of dirt and sweat and resignation, and if his fingers are sharp and cruel and cling on like there's nothing else left. He wonders if Tonks could tell him, if she were still around.
The bed is soft. It's the softest thing Harry's felt in months. Remus' smile is soft, and the folds of his robe. Harry doesn't know where Snape is. He hasn't asked. For now all he wants to do is sleep.
--
Rain still lashes against the walls of Azkaban, competing with the waves for dominance. Azkaban is a place lost in the elements. Wind, water, stone. Gulls still wheel overhead, shrieking into the wind.
In a dark corner of a forgotten cell, Severus Snape roosts in a dingy corner with his dirty black robes hanging from his wiry frame. He holds his head in his hands, rough fingernails catching in the tangles of his hair. A length of rope sits in the corner, coiled like a snake, slimy as seaweed.
It's not so very dreadful after all.
---
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