The Proud Man's Contumely

Chapter Sixteen: To Sleep Perchance To Dream

The problem with not dreaming, Harry realized, is that one wakes to the thoughts they went to sleep with. It was almost like blinking, an hours long blink, and the madness he sought to escape through unconsciousness was waiting for him when he woke, like a demon perched on his bedpost. The sleep brought by the draught was only for his body. But it was his mind that kept him bedridden.

There was simply too much to process, too many doubts and fears and thoughts and questions and memories. He couldn't distinguish them anymore. They lost their form and became mental and emotional static, and his impulses toward them were so numbered and contrary that he couldn't do anything at all. He wanted to scream, and to cry, and to laugh all at the same time, but he couldn't, so he did none of them at all. For hours at a time he lay staring at his ceiling, unable to even reach over and fumble blindly for the potion. It didn't drive away the noise in his brain, only delayed it by some degree that Harry could not even measure. He would blink, and it would be back.

Harry would have thought himself crazy, were it not for the very calm, clear, reasonable voice in the back of his mind telling him so. Crazy people don't know they are crazy do they? They can't be so objective about it. So surely the voice that reasoned he was going insane was proof that he wasn't. Not yet. Not entirely.

Coincidently, it was this voice that convinced Harry to stop taking the potion entirely. It wasn't helping anything after all, was it? And once he stopped taking the draught, Harry started to sleep. Real sleep. And at least the nightmares had some shape, some sense of coherence, even if it couldn't quite be grasped after waking.

That same voice also convinced him to start eating, told him he might as well, since it seemed obvious that he wouldn't succeed in simply willing his heart to stop beating. If he couldn't die by laying, if he had to continue, he should eat, just until he was released, so he could be strong enough to stop his heart properly, by more proven means.

However, once Harry started eating and sleeping real sleep, which gave his madness an avenue of release through dreams, where it could define itself and so play itself out, Harry began to feel better.

He couldn't quite say when the potion had stopped appearing with his meals, but eventually, Harry realized that it had. And then those too stopped coming, and in their place, Harry found a fresh change of clothes with a note directing him to the washroom as "obviously he'd been too lazy to locate it himself before now."

Harry wasn't entirely sure he was ready for this, to pick up where he left off and resume his 'normal' routine. Yet, there was something extremely sobering about peeling back his sheets and discovering he was still fully dressed in the outfit he'd donned the morning he'd left Grimmauld Place. That morning seemed so long ago Harry might otherwise have thought he'd dreamed it. Seeing the mud on his trouser knees where he'd landed outside the train was almost unreal, like waking from a dream and finding a glass slipper in one's pocket. Or more fittingly, like waking from a nightmare and finding a corpse in one's bed.

Feeling decidedly and unpleasantly in need of a wash, Harry rolled out of bed, undoing buttons as he went, shedding his clothes with many-levelled revulsion. Within moments he had stripped completely and tossed the things aside, along with all remaining thoughts of what had happened while he had worn them, like a snake shedding its skin, shuffling off what no longer served him in order to forge his armour afresh. Harry wondered if Snape might burn them. He wouldn't out it past the man. Harry hoped he would.

Oblivious to the chill dungeon air on his bare skin, Harry gathered his clean clothes and made for the door. When the knob turned easily in his hand, Harry was more than a little surprised. Had it only been his fancy that it had ever been locked in the first place? Had he made himself a prisoner? Stepping through the door didn't feel like escape, really. More like his cell had simply been expanded.

According to the note, the bathroom was to be found behind the third door Harry had previously mistaken to be a wardrobe. Having located it, however, Harry's need of a wash lost its sense of urgency. The curiosity he felt when first he stepped into this room was renewed by the lamp shining beckoningly on the corner desk, and Harry shifted his bundle to one arm and ambled over to investigate.

So this was where all those caustic remarks scrawled on Harry's schoolwork, outlining his ineptitude, had been composed all these years. This was where Snape graded, where the Snark Muse resided, perched on the handle of the modest looking scroll top to whisper in Snape's ear, his own personal thesaurus of offence. The desktop was covered even now with neat piles of essays. Harry thumbed through them. Sheet after sheet of scrawled, ink spotted and smudged parchment still glistened with red ink like fresh blood, having been recently and thoroughly eviscerated by the Potions master's merciless quill. It seemed Snape felt little inclination to lighten his lesson plan in light of recent events. Harry would be behind when he started back to classes. These particular essays, though, were first years', and Harry mused on the simplicity of the subject matter he had struggled with his own first year. Amazing really. Harry hadn't been aware he'd ever really learned anything in Snape's class. He certainly hadn't intended to. Making it through the bi-weekly ordeal in the dungeons had seemed more a matter of survival than one of education. Though apparently he'd absorbed the facts presented despite himself. They were inexorably connected to particular remarks Harry could never forget.

Only a simpleton could confuse Cardamon, a warming agent, with Cascara, an anti-inflammatory. Really Mister Potter, your idiocy astounds me sometimes, even in comparison to our Mister Longbottom here.

Harry scanned the essays idly, his lip twitching into an almost-smile at one boy's misinterpretation of the use of Asphodel and Snape's cutting remarks in response. A new generation was getting their first taste of his bittersharp brand of teaching. Harry might almost have felt sorry for them, if he had been capable of summoning any kind of feeling at all just then.

Growing bored of the essays, Harry's eyes wandered over to the nearby bookshelf. It was small but heavily laden with books of every size, colour, and thickness. A quarter-inch of dust obscured many of the names, and Harry reached out a single finger to push it aside, almost surprised the ancient bindings didn't fall way with the grey powder. Title after title was uncovered by his irreverent digit, as though he were prodding the slumbering old tomes back to life. He needed Hermione, he thought. Most all of these names were in Latin. She could descipher them easily enough. At the moment, however, it was simply beyond Harry. There were a few in what resembled English, though. To Drenk of the Rivre Styx, Siense of the Blod, Slave of Deth. Trust Snape to keep something so morbid so close at hand.

Harry's inspection was interrupted by a small clank that echoed in the stillness behind him. He spun toward it, eyeing all of the doors suspiciously, but the only one not shut tight was his own. Both the noise and the books were promptly forgotten when Harry's gaze fell on the mysterious locked door. Harry's willpower had not recovered enough for him to ignore this temptation, and he felt himself drawn toward it. Anything Snape felt compelled to secure so thoroughly was surely worth a peek. Pressing his ear to the wood, Harry could hear absolutely nothing going on on the other side of it. He stepped back and gave the door an appraising look, as if sizing up an opponent. With Snape apparently gone, he might manage to get it open if he worked quickly enough. Though, knowing Snape, it was likely sealed with more than just locks. Harry hesitated, not quite sure he was willing to exert the energy needed to get past those things. The stickiness of his thighs against one another as he shifted his weight on his feet reminded him that he was still in need of a bath, and also that he was presently standing in the middle of Snape's quarters completely starkers, with no furniture to leap behind should his host suddenly return.

Harry sighed and turned toward the washroom again, but failed to make more progress than that. His curiosity gnawed at him, and he glanced over his shoulder at the door's handle, soon finding his hand moving toward it, more of its own volition than any decision of Harry's. It was locked anyway, so it couldn't hurt to try to turn it, could it? Just once. Just to placate his impulse. When he heard the click of the latch releasing, Harry dropped his clothes in surprise. That wasn't supposed to have happened. What was he supposed to do now? Harry stood there for what seemed like forever, holding the knob in place, debating. Finally, he wet his lips and glanced nervously over both shoulders, as though making sure he was really alone. Slowly and carefully, Harry brought his foot up to brace himself against the frame and pulled.

With some effort, the door gave a fraction of an inch. Harry swallowed and took a deep breath. One good yank, that was all he'd need, and the door would be open. But even as he mustered his determination, the door pulled out of his grasp, suddenly snapping shut again. Harry gasped and sprang back as no less than four locks turned loudly and in quick succession and loud bang sounded, as of a crossbar falling into place. After he recovered, Harry clamoured forward to retrieve his fallen clothes and scrambled ungracefully for the washroom door, which he slammed shut and locked behind him, pressing the entire length of his body against it until his heart stilled. Harry waited for it, but no other sound came from the sitting room. Nothing was coming to punish him. No Snape. Gradually, Harry allowed himself to relax. And then, having done so, Harry realized he had to piss. Very badly.