Proof of Life

Realizations



Over the weeks that followed, Severus wasn't doing much. Harry had fully expected him to continue pursuing potions studies, or at the very least, to go to work at the Leaky Cauldron. But Severus seemed uninterested in any of that. Once he began taking the Dreamless Sleep potion, Severus spent enormous stretches of time simply sleeping, sometimes even falling asleep on the couch or in the armchair in the living room.



Harry smiled ruefully whenever that happened: a part of him suspected that Severus simply didn't want to fall asleep alone. Something ached inside at that thought, and Harry didn't quite know what – if anything – he was supposed to be doing about that. As days passed, he found himself watching Severus with growing concern; probably because Severus' eyelids looked unnaturally still as he slept.



~ * ~



Harry entered the living room to see Severus standing in front of the window, staring ahead as vacantly and blankly as he had the day Harry had first brought him home.



“Severus? Are you all right?” Harry asked softly, taking a step forward.



Severus gave him a small silent nod.



“Getting enough sleep?” Harry asked as neutrally as he could manage, even though the feeling of something being slightly off continued to grow.



“Mhmm.” Severus murmured. He continued to stare at something behind the window, his eyes squinting and shifting slightly as if following a moving target. “It's different, you know,” Severus said suddenly, without turning to Harry. “Sleeping while on this potion.”



“Different, how?” Harry asked.



“When you sleep the natural way, there's still some... awareness of yourself. On some level. Some type of cognitive activity going on. With Dreamless Sleep, it is as if you cease to exist for the duration of the night.”



“That doesn't sound very restful,” Harry said softly. “As a matter of fact, it sounds downright horrible.”



Severus' fingers clutched at the window-sill, his knuckles going white. His forehead pressed against the glass, and his face became obscured by the long black hair.



“I don't mind it,” Severus said in an unnaturally calm and measured voice that made a small chill run down Harry's spine.



Harry winced and swallowed hard, not quite knowing what to say. Slowly, he approached Severus and followed the direction of his gaze, to look out of the window and see a small rook hopping back and forth in the backyard, from time to time stopping to search for something amidst the damp cover of fallen leaves.



“Just look at him,” Harry said, trying to keep his tone light.



“What about him?”



“He reminds me of you,” Harry said. When no reaction followed from Severus, Harry dared to tease just a bit. “I say the resemblance is striking. Just look at his nose!”



This elicited a small, dry chuckle from Severus.



“I suppose that's where the resemblance ends,” Severus said mildly. “Corvids are said to go mad when caged. Since I've suffered no such fate, I reckon I need less freedom than they do.”



“This isn't going well,” Harry commented plaintively, not sure if he were more discouraged by how defeated Severus sounded, or by yet another reminder that he'd spent several months trying to work things out and restore Severus' freedom, without any success.



“The small talk? May I recommend that you skip it, and get to the point,” Severus said. “If the book you left lying around so conspiciously is any indication, you wanted to talk about vector magic. Correct?”



“Yes,” Harry admitted. “You're familiar with it?”



“Yes.”



“How well?”



Severus barely glanced at him. “Quite well.”



“Slave bonds and Dark Marks employ the same kind of magic?” Harry asked, wanting to check the accuracy of his hunch.



“Yes,” Severus confirmed. “Think of the magic of slave bonds and the magic of the Dark Marks as deep ocean currents. The currents might be going in different directions, some may be stronger than others, but ultimately their nature is the same, and....” Severus' voice broke slightly, and he fell silent without completing his thought.



“Hmm?” Harry turned towards Severus, who looked like a tightly stretched string ready to snap any moment. His face seemed drained of all colour. “Severus?” Harry probed, forgetting everything other than Severus' immediate well-being. “Are you all right?”



It took Severus a while to answer.



“Yes,” he whispered at long last. “I just realized something, that's all.”



~ * ~



At some point, Severus stopped struggling. He simply stood almost perfectly still and stared down, his eyes fixed on the metal clamps pinning his wrists down to a table surface. It'd been a long time since he'd hurled insults at his captors, or pleaded for mercy, or even attempted to anticipate their next move. All he could do was react. And he did, flinching when the large hand rested on the nape of his neck.



“Severus,” the familiar voice of one of his captors taunted him. “You're a very lucky man. You realize

that, don't you?”



Something dropped in his stomach. He froze, not daring to make a single sound, and not daring to even as much as cast a small sideways glance at Macnair.



Macnair continued to talk.



“Have you given any thought as to why you're still alive? Why you still have all your limbs and senses? Why you're still sane?” Severus flinched again when Macnair's hand released the back of his neck and gathered a fistful of his hair instead, yanking his head backwards. “You might be tempted to think it's because of how eagerly you debase yourself and how effortlessly you comply with your own degradation to stay alive. Let me assure you that the entertainment value you provide is minimal.”



Macnnair's grip on his hair tightened for a brief moment before letting go. Severus' head dropped forward, and he stared down again, feeling sickened by the sight of his own hands trapped and immobilized.



“You are still alive, and sane, because we want something from you,” Macnair informed him matter-of-factly. “Something you know.”



“I don't know anything anymore,” Severus whispered. “It's been a long time since the war... any information I still have is useless to you by now.”



“We don't need information,” Nott clarified. “We need knowledge. Your knowledge of the Dark Arts, which are varied, ever-changing, and eternal.” Severus shuddered as Nott's hand returned and rested on his bloodied back. Fiery agony blossomed and spread outwards from the point where the heel of his captor's hand touched the exposed flesh. “We'd like you to share the knowledge you've so lovingly and painstakingly accumulated over the years. Since you've betrayed us, it's only fair that you remedy the harm done and aid us in this ongoing war against the Ministry. Don't you agree?”



Severus stared down in silence. He saw a serrated knife, that Macnair was now wielding, begin to make its way towards his immobilized hands.



“Your mental discipline is failing,” Nott continued. “You aren't able to Occlude effectively. Your lies are becoming more transparent. If you would like to make one last futile attempt at defiance and try to keep us out of your mind, be my guest. It'll be even more interesting this way.” Turning to Macnair, he added, as if as an afterthought, “cut off his fingers.”



With distant, almost detached fascination Severus stared down, watching that knife move, the tip of it position itself between his index finger and his thumb. For a second he thought it probably didn't matter – it wasn't as if he'd ever hold a wand, or a quill, or a stirring rod .... then, suddenly and unexpectedly, panic assaulted, its sticky tendrils crawling from the back of his head along his spine, and twisting his gut into a knot. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out.



“Wait, wait,” Nott said suddenly, pushing Macnair's hand away. “Severus, have you made up your mind? Will you help us..?”



“Take it,” Severus heard himself say then. “Take it all.”



~* ~



Severus wasn't sure how long he stood motionless, simply staring at his own hands, his mind trying to find its way back to reality through the debris of resurfaced memories. It must have been a while, because when Harry's voice finally registered with him, it was troubled to the point of being frantic.



“Severus? Are you all right?” Harry asked. “Severus!”



“Fine,” he managed to say. “I'm fine, of course. Why?”



“You started saying something. Then you sort of... spaced out.”



“Oh,” Severus muttered. “Yes. Where were we?”



“Vector magic,” Harry reminded him, giving him a long, concerned look. “Then you said you remembered something.”



“Right.” An involuntary shiver ran down his spine, and he froze, making an attempt to supress it. “Well, I was trying to say that vector magic isn't a branch of knowledge that many people are familiar with. And I just realized that...”



Severus' voice trailed off as he found he couldn't continue. He twitched as the the familiar sticky tendrils of terror mingled with shame reached for his throat, making his breathing constrict.



“That the Underground learned vector magic from you,” Harry said softly. “They got that knowledge out of you after they'd captured you. That's how they are recreating the Dark Marks now. Yes?”



Severus nodded and turned his head slightly to look at Harry. Oddly, the few feet separating them seemed an unconquerable distance, and the recollections of his captivity now appeared more vivid and palpable than Harry's presence. Severus could swear he still felt the touch of his captor's hand on his back, but somehow he wasn't entirely sure that, if he reached out for Harry, he'd find a real person there.



Severus stilled and forced a slow breath out. He suspected he was on the verge of a breakdown of some sort, and he didn't dare make a single move or let out a single sound, for the fear that something inside would crumble and fall apart irretrievably if he didn't keep himself together. His tension must have been noticed because Harry offered a small smile and said,



“It'll be all right, you know.”



The words that used to be reassuring brought a sharp pang of lonely ache with them. It hurt to hear Harry say that – and nothing more. Not that Severus wanted to hear anything else at this point – he doubted that he could handle either questions about how much he'd allowed his captors to take from his mind, or why it had taken him so long to realize it.



He wondered briefly what it would feel like to turn back the clock, to abandon all shame and fall to his knees before Potter the way he used to months ago. He wondered if feeling something other than the maddening, grim loneliness of being trapped in his own memories would be worth that sort of concession. For the moment, he no longer knew.



He only knew that he couldn't stop staring at Harry, with every second noting different details of his appearance – the old wool sweater with dog hair stuck to it, the outline of his shoulders that gave the impression of awkward uncertaintly, the way his chest was rising and falling with every breath... Everything about Harry rang with a simple, human warmth that felt like something long-lost, but entirely irresistible and intoxicating once remembered.



Stuck in the same spot, Severus was startled to realize that Harry was staring back at him, appearing to be just as tense and flushed. Harry's lips moved as if he were about to say something, but no sound came.



“Potter,” Severus finally managed to say, hoping that his voice didn't break as he spoke. “You should go.”



Harry winced slightly at his words, but didn't back down.



“You really want me to leave?” Harry checked. His words, although calm, seemed to carry the slighest note of hurt – or disappointment – it was hard to be sure.



Severus was about to take a step back, but found himself unable to move. The tension in the pit of his stomach continued to mount, twisting, spreading, transforming into a tightly wound coil of heat and sweet ache that he'd almost failed to recognize for what it was.



Harry looked at him quizzically and nearly plaintively. Severus held his gaze, suddenly finding that the need to equivocate or hide was gone.



“No,” he confessed with a small shake of his head. “Not really.”



Harry nodded slightly and took a step towards him. Severus followed suit, until they stood face to face, inches away from each other. Severus stilled as Harry's breath, hot and dry, brushed against his parted lips.



For a long second nothing happened; only a faint shadow of doubt crossed Harry's face. Severus stared at Harry, who had the look of a man about to ask something incredibly important and incredibly stupid.



“Don't you dare, Potter,” Severus warned. His fingers clutched around Harry's wrist.



If his grip was too painful, Harry didn't seem to mind, or even notice.



All hesitation gone from his features, Harry smiled, warpped his free arm around Severus and leaned in to kiss him.



To be continued...