Drowning

Drowning.

Severus Snape was drowning; the frigid depths of liquid black swirling, churning, and smothering. Its cold, nimble fingers slithered deeper, threatening to extinguish all hope. He desperately struggled against his dark attacker only to grow ever weaker and curse the burning in his lungs. Icy darkness seeped into his very core. His frostbitten body burned with the pain of a thousand needles as reluctant muscles relaxed in a welcome to certain death. His face froze with a look of unexpected horror as his mind began to cloud in submission to his fate. One last breath would allow this inky perpetrator to suffocate his fight. He instinctually opened his mouth and began to draw in an icy mouthful.

Then, quite abruptly, he awoke with a start.

Severus shivered in his bed as he gasped for breath, his heart threatening to burst from his chest. His hands gripped the sheets below him tightly as he closed his eyes and willed himself to take a deep breath in order to quiet the pounding of his heart. Severus slowly exhaled and felt the tightness in his chest begin to release. He took another deep breath and opened his eyes.

A dream. It was just a dream.

Still feeling somewhat disoriented, he lay still as he attempted to regain his composure. The mattress felt damp with sweat and a comforter lay crumpled on the bedchamber's stone floor. The early morning light from the chamber's lone window cast gloomy shadows across his naked body. Against the dark sheets, his skin looked deathly pale.

Just a dream. Severus scorned himself for being so shaken. By a dream of all things. Nothing more than an unconscious fancy. He had faced far worse than the trappings of his own mind and had survived. No sense in getting worked up about the dream. It was embarrassing, really, that it had so unnerved him. Severus shivered and mocked himself for being so cowardly.

The silken sheets suddenly felt very abrasive. Severus swung his legs around and sat on the edge of the bed. He could feel all of the familiar aches and pains returning to his body: the faint burning itch on his left forearm, the dull ache in his right knee, and the heavy pain in his chest. Severus cursed the stiffness of his left hip as he stood and hobbled toward the bathroom.

He squinted as the light in the bathroom turned on automatically upon his entrance. He relieved himself and bent to wash his hands at the sink. Severus looked up at his tired reflection in the mirror. He hated what he saw. The events of the last few months had taken a terrible toll.

His face looked extremely gaunt, dark circles under his sunken eyes. The fresh scar on the right side of his face glowed pink as it ran from his eyebrow to meet his hairline where long, greasy black hair mercifully hid it from view. And there, on his left side, dangerously close to his heart but for a few tender centimeters, lay another shiny pink scar with its parallel twin like a star on his back. Severus touched this newest imperfection and felt a sudden stabbing pain deep within his chest...But he was lucky. A small price to pay for his life.

Severus dried his hands and cast a judgmental look over the rest of his body while absentmindedly rubbing the Dark Mark on his forearm. He had always been a thin man, but now he looked almost emaciated. Blue veins faintly streaked and webbed their way up his arms and into his torso. His ribs were painfully evident, and his pelvic bones threatened to break the skin.

Disgusted, he turned and limped back to the bedchamber, the morning light now streaming through the window. Severus went directly to the bureau where he grabbed a small vial filled with a dark liquid and rapidly swilled its contents. Almost immediately he began to feel a distinct warming sensation as the Expatia Potion spread through his limbs. Severus tested his left leg. The stiffness diminished enough so that as he walked toward the closet, his limp seemed hardly noticeable.

He quickly selected the day's black robes and decided, in the absence of hunger, to skip breakfast and go directly to his office to grade a few of the sixth years' reports. As he made his way toward the potions classroom, Severus felt quite relieved to have no one cross his path. It was early yet, but the halls would soon be filled with bothersome, noisy students. He welcomed the quiet reprieve of his office and settled in to reading the dreadfully mundane scrolls, Ripgar Hide and How to Use It.

Several scrolls later, Severus realized that he had not actually paid attention to a word in any of them. Muttering a few choice words about his inability to concentrate, he laid the current scroll aside and held his head in his hands, trying to get a hold of himself. Deep breath in and hold....1...2....3.....4.......This is absolutely ridiculous.

Severus reached into his desk's bottom drawer and pulled out a vial of a dark green liquid. Astuto Potion. Fortunately, its ingredients were quite benign and would not counteract any of those in the potion taken earlier. He swallowed the potion swiftly and grimaced at the taste. The potion worked quickly, and he had finished grading the majority of the reports when he heard students begin filing into the classroom. He sighed heavily, fixed a scowl upon his face, and entered the classroom to face class after class, all of them bumbling through the very basics of potion-making.

Professor Snape's persona struck fear into the hearts of nearly every student in potions class that day. While this fact brought some degree of satisfaction to him, he could not help but feel more and more depressed as the day wore on. An invisible burden weighed heavily upon his shoulders when he could not help but notice the abundance of absent students. Only a few weeks into the new year, it had been this way since the beginning of the term.

Too many students had not returned to Hogwarts this year. Severus swallowed his despair as he thought on the missing students. He had failed in finding an end to the terrible war, and in doing so had only caused its escalation. So many lives taken, young and old. The fourth year Ariel Nova and her second year twin sisters, Beatrice and Catherine, had been murdered along with their youngest brother and parents. The third year Cecil Bailey watched the Death Eaters torture his parents before being killed himself. So young...

His most torturous thoughts, however, were of the students who could not be accounted for. Obviously many of the truant Slytherin students had either left of their own volition or been pulled out by their parents in order to more fully take part in Voldemort's crusade. Some of the Ravenclaws, even, had been reported as being seen cavorting with the dark side. Unfortunately, most, if not all, of the missing Gryffindor and Hufflepuff students were presumed dead, but no one had yet to account for their bodies. The disappearance of the entire Weasley family had come as a great shock to the wizarding world, Arthur Weasley being Dumbledore's chief and most vocal supporter.

Harry Potter, while still accounted for, was kept under close watch as many rightly feared that Voldemort would again make an attempt on his life. Anywhere the sixth-year went, at least one wizarding guard followed. Potter had at first protested their presence, but the horrific disappearance of the Weasleys had particularly struck him into realization of the extensive danger he now faced. He had convinced the Ministry to allow him to return to school, but Severus noticed that while his friend Hermione Granger never left his side, Harry remained extremely sullen and unresponsive.

All of this, Severus observed from the self-imposed position of an outsider. He had failed in the task Albus Dumbledore so trustedly set before him. Not only failed but failed miserably. Dumbledore said it could not have been helped, that the mission was doomed before it started, but Severus knew differently. He knew that if only he had made a different decision, chosen a different method, he could have saved so many of the missing and the dead.

As he laid in the hospital bed after having been pulled out of his project, he begged them to kill him. Put me out of my misery! They refused. I can't live. I don't deserve to. Dumbledore held him as he cried, saying, 'Nothing could have been done differently, Severus. You know as well as I do. Now, come. We must learn from what has passed and forge ahead. We have much work yet to be done if we are to emerge victorious.' Still he begged, let me die!

Now Severus's greatest challenge was to live. Having been betrayed to the Death Eaters, he could no longer serve as Dumbledore's spy and was forced to hide as potions master at Hogwarts once more, every day a nightmare as he dealt with the staggering guilt of having failed so many in so short a time.

At the end of the day, Severus limped to his bedchamber, the Expatia Potion long worn off. He collapsed on the sofa and reached for the decanter of brandy. Everything hurt so desperately; it hurt to move, to think. His vision dimmed as the tightness in his chest returned. He could scarcely breathe, and the potions were too far away. The brandy. He needed the brandy. With shaking hands, Severus grabbed the decanter and let the fiery brandy drown his pain before his thoughts could grab hold and pull him under.