The Dream of One Night

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Severus

Because there were no windows in the tomb by which I could gauge the passing of the hours, I'm not sure exactly how long I was able to hold out before my first lapse in concentration. The Revenant had been able to glean my father's voice from that one, as well as learn my name. However, I knew that I was still relatively safe if the Revenant continued to believe the sight of my father walking around once more was the most disturbing image for me; he had not yet discovered Avrille.

The second attack proved to be far more damaging than the first. I had been struggling vainly against the seductive lull of sleep, my mind slowly misting over in grey. Only the constant sight of the demon pacing back and forth in front of me kept me from forgetting why I was struggling so hard to keep my mind clenched tighter than a vice. Unfortunately, my eyes closed inadvertently for just a moment, a blink that lasted a few too many seconds, and the Revenant struck again. This time, instead of extracting an image to be used against me, it attacked my mental barriers from the inside out, causing me to feel faint for a good thirty seconds until I could muster my concentration once more and force the invader out.

My stomach felt as though it were trying to gnaw itself into shreds. It was impossible not to think of all of the meals I was missing at the castle. I was so desperate to relieve the hunger pains that I gorged myself on too much water and vomited it straight back up, tainting the small water pool until it could drain itself out. The Revenant watched all of this with a pleased and amused smirk on its face, uncannily mimicking my father's mannerisms of when he had been feeling particularly vicious.

Seconds that felt like minutes and hours that felt like years trudged slowly on. I surmised I must have been in the tomb for over twenty-four hours now, though there was no way I could really tell. I tried counting the time, but my muddled head lost track somewhere in the ten-thousands. To keep myself occupied, I mentally recited poetry and potions formulas. A headache that far surpassed the one created by the Death Wish in brain-numbing agony had long since taken up residence behind my eyes. As my head nodded slowly, my chin hitting my breastbone jarring me back into reality, I wondered if the headache was from sleep deprivation or if the Revenant was subtly pressing his powers into me.

Deep down I had known it to be inevitable, but when I finally lost consciousness, my mental scream of frustrated rage pushed the Revenant back for a few moments. However, as I slipped into oblivion, it delved ravenously into my most horrible memories...

"Where is she?!" my father roared, cuffing me behind the ear hard enough to send my seven-year-old body tumbling to the floor.

"I don't know!" I replied hoarsely. My throat was raw from crying. I had seen Mother take the carriage and leave the house after midnight, when she thought I was asleep. It was now morning. I knew she would be back eventually, but why had she left me behind?

My father grabbed a fistful of my collar and yanked me back upright. He held his face an inch away from mine as he pulled me up so high I had to stand on my toes. His breath reeked of stale whiskey and his hair hung madly into bloodshot eyes.

"You'd better hope she's back before nightfall, you little bastard!" he hissed, though I far preferred his screaming. He threw me back down roughly onto the stone floor of the kitchen, making me scrape the skin off of my knees. My father stormed from the room, grabbing his money pouch on his way out. He was on his way to the "whorehouse." I didn't know what that meant, but that's what I had heard the servants whisper when they thought I was in another room.

It was a few days later. I hadn't gone downstairs for the whole time, a servant thankfully bringing my meals to me in my bedroom. The days hadn't passed too badly... My cuts and bruises were almost all healed, and I had spent many hours reading on my bed while my kitten, Plum, purred at my feet. Plum had wandered into the garden a few weeks ago. Mr Flyte, the gardener, was going to feed her rat poison since he said once you got one cat, they all started crawling out of the woodwork. So I had hidden Plum in my jacket and brought her into my room. She was brown with black stripes on her sides like fish bones, and still not fully grown yet. I fed her on scraps of food that I secreted into my pockets at the dinner table. My father, being badly allergic to cats, had been sneezing constantly and blaming the spring weather. Every time he sneezed, I had to force myself not to laugh.

Mother returned in the afternoon. I heard the rattle of the carriage wheels on the gravel driveway, and after giving Mother a half-hour to come in and get settled, I ran downstairs with Plum hidden in my jacket once more. I knew Mother would be sad now that she was home, and I thought sharing Plum with her might cheer her up. But as I crept down the last two steps, I heard Father had gotten to her first.

"Where were you?" I heard him command icily from the direction of the formal sitting room. Like rats scurrying away at the first sign of a leaking hull, the servants all hurried to make themselves busy in other parts of the house.

"Please, Septimus, don't be angry. My nerves needed a rest," was Mother's quiet reply. I could hear her voice was trembling already, a bad sign. When she cried, it just made Father angrier. I snuck across the front hall, unable to stop myself from wanting to know where Mother had gone as well. Plum was starting to grow anxious, so I took her out of my jacket and held her tightly in my arms.

My father dropped into a harsh whisper that was actually louder than his normal speaking voice. "Do you know how it makes me look when I can't even locate my own wife? People will say, if I can't control her, how can I be expected to control the entire firm?"

"I find it hard to believe that I am the worst threat to your honour," Mother said coldly. "I found something beside the bed as I was putting away my things." Peeking through the crack in the door, I saw her pull from her pocket something black and lacy. "One of your tarts must have forgotten it." She threw it at my father's feet in disgust.

"How dare you?!" he thundered and slapped her brutally across the face, splitting her lip open. Mother turned and fled through the door leading to the dining room, tears shining in her eyes as she held a hand to her bleeding mouth. Father stalked towards where I was standing just outside the hall door so quickly that I dropped Plum in surprise. As Father flung the door open the rest of the way, he stepped on Plum's tail, making her screech in pain. My father, already furious, pulled out his wand in a flash and shot a curse of bright green light at Plum, who was streaking towards the kitchens in fear. The spell caught her mid-leap, and she slid a few feet, then didn't move. Placing his wand back into his coat pocket my father turned to me and slapped me across the face like he had Mother.

"I said no bloody pets! Get rid of that!" He stormed out the front door.

My cheek stinging, I ran over to Plum as soon as I was sure I could hear my father's footsteps moving away. Her soft fur was still warm, but no matter how lovingly I stroked it, she wouldn't purr for me. I tried all of the healing spells I had read about, but I hadn't started school yet, so they didn't work. I buried her that night in a far corner of the garden where Mr Flyte never went.

"Severus... Severus, wake up... You need to wake up now..."

I thought I heard my mother's gentle voice speak through the painful thoughts the Revenant was forcing me to relive. My consciousness stirred, and I forced myself awake once more. However, it took all of my strength to simply keep my eyes open. My mind felt naked and vulnerable without my walls protecting it. The Revenant was still taking the form of my father, and he was leaning over me as I lay slumped against the hard granite wall. Taking my face between its hands, it said, "That was good, but I'm sure we can do better..."

It was graduation day at Hogwarts. After the ceremony, Lily came running up to me and threw her arms around me excitedly.

"Severus! You'll never guess what happened! James asked me to marry him yesterday!" she exclaimed, her face glowing with joy.

"What?!" I said harshly, taking her arms in my hands to pull her off of me. "How can you be serious? I'd hoped that once we graduated you'd grow up and break it off with that bastard."

Lily's face fell instantly, and I hated myself for saying that, but I was sick of pretending to not mind her constantly draping herself over Potter like a love-sick idiot whenever he was around.

"I... I know you don't like James... but if you would just give him a chance..." Her green eyes looked at me in a pleading, wounded way that reminded me of my mother's just before my father would hit her. The hurt tears in Lily's eyes, that she would be begging me for his sake, just made me even more angry.

"Give him a chance? What the hell do you think I've been doing for the past seven years?! Last term when he stole all of my textbooks and had a nice bonfire by the lake with his mate Black, the only reason I didn't jinx the conceited git's precious hair off was because I knew how much you liked him." I crossed my arms and looked away from her, back towards the front of the castle, trying to take deep breaths and not completely lose my temper. My father had been most displeased when I had had to write to him last term and ask for money to replace those books before exams started.

Why could Lily not see Potter's faults? They were so obvious to everyone else! He was arrogant, stuck-up, thought he was God's gift to the school... Not to mention Carrington had informed me that he saw Potter with his tongue down Penny Jones' throat last month behind the hothouses.

"Well maybe if you had ever bothered to try and hang out with us instead of those Slytherin creeps, he might not have picked on you so much," Lily said icily.

My anger having reached the boiling point, I replied with deadly calm, "Well, I think it's obvious you don't need me anymore now that you have darling James. Don't bother inviting me to the wedding." I turned and stormed away from her.

Those were the last words I ever said to her in person.

I was sitting behind the staff table at my first Halloween feast as Hogwarts' new Potions master. I wished I could have skived out on it since the last thing I felt like was piles of candy and cake, but Dumbledore had asked me especially to attend since he had some other matters to take care of that night. I was itching to go out and try to make contact with Lucius Malfoy. The Dark Lord was growing more and more obsessive with his search for Lily's son, and I was sure I could get Lucius to tell me some new details that I could then pass on to the Order.

Suddenly, half-way through the massive desserts course, the Dark Mark on my arm burned like it was on fire for the briefest of moments before the pain dulled into a pulsing throb. The pain had been so unexpected and so intense that I had drawn a sharp intake of breath, making Minerva glance at me concernedly. I knew it had not been the same sensation as when the Dark Lord summoned us Death Eaters, so I decided to wait until the feast was over so as to not raise suspicion with a sudden exit. As soon as I was able, I dashed out into the hallway and pulled up my sleeve. The Dark Mark, outlined in red as opposed to its normal black, was fading back into my skin.

Not knowing what to make of it, I ran up the stairs to Dumbledore's office and burst in without even knocking. Dumbledore was just dropping a long travelling cloak onto his desk and turned to me slowly as I stood before him, wordlessly holding my forearm out for him to see. Dumbledore sighed heavily and surprised me by placing an arm gently around my shoulders.

"Severus... Something has happened..." he said sadly as he led me toward a chair in front of his desk...

"Severus... You have to wake up! You need to stay strong for me, my darling. You can't give up now!"

Once again I could have sworn I heard my mother's voice calling out to me, summoning me back into the present. However, this time I wasn't even able to open my eyes before waves of sorrow, pain, and regret pulled me back under.