Unexpected Fate (Severus Snape x Reader)

Pain was the only thing that remained constant.

Time no longer seemed to hold meaning. I didn't know how long I had been here—wherever here was. Maybe hours. Maybe days. Maybe longer. It was impossible to tell when my only reality was a never-ending loop of suffering, a cycle of memories and torment I had no control over.

Sometimes, I thought I heard voices—muffled, distant, like whispers drifting through thick fog. I would try to reach for them, to pull myself toward the sound, but my body no longer obeyed me. My limbs were heavy, unmovable, my mind trapped in an endless void of pain.

And the memories kept coming.

Again and again, I was forced to relive them.

My father. His wand raised, his voice cold and unfeeling as he muttered the words that sent fire coursing through my veins. "Crucio." The unbearable pain, the feeling of my body convulsing on the ground, my fingers clawing at the cold stone floor, as if I could escape the agony by sheer force of will.

My mother. Pale and fragile in her hospital bed, her hand cold in mine, her breath slowing, her body growing still. My desperate whispers, my pleas for her to stay, to fight. The final beep of the heart monitor, the crushing silence that followed.

The unknown.

A scene that wasn't mine, but one I now saw as if I had been there.

Voldemort's red eyes gleaming in the dim candlelight. Hooded figures standing in a circle. And in the center—Severus.

"Tell me, Severus... how much does she know?"

Each time, I wanted to scream. To fight. To break free.

But I was helpless, a prisoner in my own mind, trapped in this endless loop of suffering.

And then, something changed.

A new presence entered the void.

It was faint at first, a whisper against the heavy darkness. It wasn't part of my memories. It wasn't the past. It was something else. Someone else.

Draco.

I couldn't see him, couldn't hear him clearly, but I could feel him. His presence was hesitant, filled with uncertainty, lingering at the edge of my awareness like a ghost unsure whether to stay or flee. He was watching me.

At first, I thought I was imagining it. But then, time and time again, I felt him return. He never spoke, at least not in a way I could understand. But he was there.

And he was afraid.

Not of me.

Of what he had done.

Of what he hadn't done.

He had been given an order. Kill her. The Dark Lord had decided I knew too much, had seen too much, and Draco had been sent to silence me.

But he hadn't done it.

Instead, I had been left in this cursed limbo, my body frozen, my mind lost, my very existence hanging in the balance between life and death.

Draco had made a choice.

He had chosen not to kill me.

And now he didn't know how to fix it.

The first time I felt him near me, it was like a distant echo. He hovered on the edge of my consciousness, never quite reaching out, never quite touching, but there. He didn't know if I could hear him. Maybe he was speaking. Maybe he was just sitting in silence, watching my motionless body, except for the slight, involuntary twists and tremors—screams, while the weight of his guilt pressed down on him like an iron chain.