NOTE: There are 2 brief torture dream scenes in this chapter. They are not majorly graphic but still may upset sensitive readers. Skip the bits between the ~~ZZZs~~~ if you don't wish to read them.
______________________
It could have been stepping back into Knockturn Alley or seeing Rabastan Lestrange again that created the unease in his mind. All he knew was avoiding sleep was preferrable to whatever awaited him in his dreams.
Reading a good book or watching some silly, banal comedy on television made no difference. Eventually he would have to sleep. The body almost always wins out over the mind. The mind can overcome, occlude for awhile but, in the end, the body has control.
He knew all bravery consisted of suppressing the fear long enough to do your job. Being afraid can, and usually did, come later. The trembling, the nausea, the pain, it all had to wait to advance the cause for the greater good and to Hades with the aftereffects and his PTSD.
Finally sleep forced itself upon him. Thoughts of Voldemort and his punishers, the Lestrange brothers with their flesh-slicing whips, crept in from the dark corridors of his nightmares. Terrors, horrors real and imagined mixing, melding into one monstrous scene.
~~~~ZZZ~~~~
Magical chains cuffed his wrists as Severus hung in front of the Dark Lord like an animal ready for slaughter. Voldemort sat high on a cold grey stone chair, pale and ghostly. His eyes now a blood red. His translucent skin pulled tightly over veins and sinew. His face perverted into a snake-like appearance, his voice chilling,
"Severusss, you disobeyed me."
He begs,
"It was Dumbledore, I had to! Mercy, My Lord!"
Voldermort laughs, twisted, insane, hissing,
"Mercccy, Ssseverusss? There is no mercccy here."
Vicious shouts encircle them from somewhere in the darkness,
"TRAITOR!" "TORTURE HIM!"
"TRAITOR!" "TRAITOR!"
"KILL HIM!"
The Dark Lord's mouth spreads wide, disarticulating his jaw, revealing dagger-sharp fangs gleaming in the torchlight, fresh blood dripping like venom,
"Rudolphus! Rabastan! Your whips!"
The Lestrange brothers step into view slapping their cat-o-nine-tails into the palms of their hands.
Rudolphus raises the leather weapon bringing the barbed cords down hard to flail across Severus' back as Rabastan mirrors the lashing from the other side.
Searing pain burns like the hot flames of a bonfire licking at his back.
The whips crack again, ripping skin from muscle and muscle from bone. Severus feels the wetness of the blood spilling from his deep wounds as the pain tears through his brain. The gathering of Death-Eaters cheer wildly.
Voldemort glares, eyes dilated, excited,
"CRUCIO!"
Wrists strain against the chains, he hears himself scream.
YOU ARE READING
Old Sins, Long Shadows
أدب الهواةThe war ended 7 years ago. Now, in 2006, recruited by MI6, British operative S3, Severus Snape, is caught up in a desperate search for a stolen magical artifact that could see the rise of another megalomaniac bent on world domination. His magical co...
