Never Surrender [ Snape x Lupin ]

Chapter Thirty Two

Severus was pale, hands shaking as he felt frozen in place. His heart was beating painfully in his chest and he was invaded with a sudden urge to flee but couldn't move at all. His breathing was too sharp for his own good and he felt he would start sweating soon. There was a horrible sense of fear and dread embedded in him, all things he had felt before.

He could swear he heard a hiss and that terrible sluggish sound of a heavy tail crawling close to his feet. His lips were trembling but he couldn't make a sound, although he was screaming inwardly.

"I have to leave, I have to run, it's here"

Snape managed a few steps to lean on the nearest wall, his panic made his hands cold and he started to fear he would pass out with his worst fear waiting for his descent on the ground. It was a nightmarish haze of terrifying memories, the scar in his neck was so painful it seemed to be wide open once again, all seemed to be crumbling down in the edges of his vision until he heard a voice.

"Hey, hey, everything is fine, you are home, no one will hurt you here, whatever you saw was just your mind filling in the gaps"

Severus felt a couple of touches being distributed around his body, although he couldn't be sure of some since he was too nervous to pay attention to it. His shoulders and base of the neck seemed to be relaxing in spite of his agitation. Soon enough, Pixie helped him sit down on the floor since there were no chairs in the corridor.

As soon as Pixie spoke to him he stopped to deepen in his memories, and as soon as she touched him, he started to breathe more steadily, his heart rate went down and the dense cloud of fear that hung over him started to dissipate. Severus knew the places she touched were carrying most of his physical tension, so it helped him clear his mind to have them reset to a non-stressful configuration.

She sat right in front of him, touching directly into his forearms with her hands.

"Why don't you tell me some of your least favorite foods?" Pixie asked

Severus named a desert they had at Hogwarts with raisins. The taste wasn't so bad, but the texture was sickening. He described with broken words, Pixie could tell he had a chain of thought going on but there was a lot of interference. She took mental notes on his tension and heart rate.

"Seems like an awful thing to eat indeed," She said as if they were having a normal conversation. "Now you tell me what happened," she said gently, looking straight into his eyes

Severus told her he was going to get his coat in the bedroom, this time more well composed than his last attempt to describe a situation. He was afraid of giving too much detail and ruining the little progress he made on calming down, but strangely, as he told he saw Nagini's reflection on the corridor's window right behind him, he felt his stress was identical to the former description he had just given about the food.

"And what startled you most? Was it a glimpse or did you see Nagini close to your feet?"

Snape realized he closed his eyes as soon as he had seen the reflection, the sound and weight of the snake crawling over his feet were sensations he experienced with his eyes closed. He could tell Pixie was actively attenuating his reaction to some mental triggers he had. Whenever they spoke the name of the snake, his pulse accelerated, so she made it drop to only cause him a fraction of that discomfort.

This was some of the basis of her treatment, she would walk Severus through traumatic events in a safer way, letting him speak freely and attenuating his reactions to make them bearable. When triggered out of his sessions, she would do the same. She was trying to teach his mind to react in a reasonable way to the trauma. She could even teach his mind to be indifferent about it over time, but she believed some memories should remain what they truly are, only in a way people can endure without causing further damage.