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.
I didn't know how long he stayed each time. But I knew he kept coming back.
I felt it in the way his presence lingered, in the way his hesitation filled the air like something heavy and unspoken.
He wasn't supposed to care. But he did. And it terrified him.
One day—if it was a day—his presence was different.
There was urgency in the way he hovered near me. A sense of panic, of desperation. I could feel his heart pounding even though I wasn't touching him, could feel the quick, shallow breaths he tried to quiet.
Something had changed.
Draco was running out of time.
And still, he couldn't bring himself to do it.
I didn't know how, but I felt the way he sat beside me, his hand hovering over mine but never quite touching. I could feel the conflict raging inside him, the war between what he had been told to do and what he wanted to do.
"I should have just—" His voice was quiet, almost broken. "I should have—"
A pause. A sharp inhale.
"I'm sorry."
The words were raw. True.
But they didn't change anything.
Because I was still trapped.
And he still didn't know how to save me.
The first thing I felt—truly, undeniably felt—was his presence.
It was different from Draco's. More forceful. More powerful. More angry.
Severus was not a man ruled by emotion, but his rage burned through the air like a storm crashing into still waters. I couldn't see him, but I could hear him, his voice slicing through the fog like a knife.
"What have you done?"
Draco flinched. I could feel it, even through the haze. His fear. His guilt. His shame.
"I— I couldn't— I didn't—"
"Foolish boy!" Severus' voice cracked like a whip, his fury sharp and immediate. "You left her to— this?"
There was a sharp inhale—Draco's breath hitching, his words tangled in his throat.
"I couldn't do it," he whispered.
Silence.
But it wasn't just silence. It was realization.
I could feel it in the way Severus' presence shifted, the way his breath came unsteadily, how his initial anger twisted into something colder, something laced with shock.
Because this... this was more than what he had expected.
He had known—of course, that I was in danger. That Voldemort had taken notice of me. That our stolen moments, had made me a target. He had left Spinner's End that night because of me, because he had been summoned, questioned.
But this—
Draco had been ordered to kill me.
Not just to keep me away, not just to silence me—to end my life.
Alongside Dumbledore's death, I had been his other mission.
And that knowledge struck Severus with a force I could almost feel through the haze of my prison.
His silence was brief—just a flicker of stillness, a fraction of a second where the weight of it all settled over him like ice—before he inhaled sharply, his fury returning, now edged with something far more dangerous.
"She's dying, Draco."
The words weren't just spoken. They were a verdict.
And in that moment, Severus knew—whatever it took, whatever the cost, he would get me back.
The words sent a shudder through me, even though I wasn't fully conscious.
Something inside me was unraveling.
And Severus knew it.
I could feel the way his mind worked, the way his logic pieced things together with terrifying efficiency. He wasn't just angry—he was calculating, searching for a way to fix what Draco had broken.
And then, finally, after a long pause, he spoke again.
His voice was quieter this time.
"I'll get her out."
I wasn't prepared for it.
The sheer force of Severus' presence slamming into mine, the way his magic pushed inside, forcing his way into the tangled mess of my consciousness.
He wasn't just trying to wake me up. He was trying to pull me back. And in doing so, he saw everything. My father's curses. My mother's death.
His own cold words, the ones that had cut deeper than any wound.
And then—our moments together.
The fire of his lips on mine. The heat of his touch. The intimacy that had always existed, unspoken, lingering beneath the surface.
Severus saw it all. And he felt it. The pain. The longing. The truth.
"Severus... You seem to have taken a particular interest in this one."
The reason he had left that night.
The reason I had been marked for death.
The truth shattered through him like a blade.
And then—
I woke up. And the first thing I saw was him.
Severus knelt beside me, his face impossibly pale, his breath uneven, his dark eyes wide with something that almost looked like fear. His hand was still on my wrist, his grip loose but present, as if he wasn't quite sure whether to let go or hold on tighter.
For the first time since I had known him, he looked shaken. He had seen everything. The weight of it settled in the space between us.
I swallowed, my voice barely a whisper.
"You saw."
It wasn't a question.
Severus snapped out of whatever trance he had been in. In an instant, his grip tightened just enough to steady me, his free hand moving to my shoulder to keep me from pushing myself too far.
"Don't," he said, his voice low, rough, strained in a way I had never heard before. "You need to stay still."
The concern in his tone startled me almost as much as the way his hands lingered—hesitant, yet firm, unwilling to let go just yet.
I swallowed hard, my pulse pounding as I looked at him, as I studied the way his expression had shifted.
"What happened?" My voice was hoarse, my throat raw from what felt like weeks of screaming, though I couldn't tell if any of it had truly been real or if it had all been in my mind.
His grip tightened slightly, his gaze flickering over my face, as if searching for something, as if unsure what to say, how to explain.
"You were trapped," he finally said, his voice quieter now, measured. "A curse—one that should not have existed, one that should have killed you." His jaw tightened, his eyes flashing with something dark, something dangerous. "But it didn't."
I shivered. "Because of Draco."
Severus' expression darkened instantly, his fingers flexing ever so slightly where they held me.
"Yes," he said, the word edged with something between rage and disbelief. He inhaled sharply, closing his eyes for the briefest moment before forcing himself to speak. "He was ordered to kill you. He did not."
Something inside me twisted painfully, though I wasn't sure if it was the knowledge of what Draco had been meant to do, or the look on Severus' face as he said it—as if the very idea of it was unacceptable to him.
He exhaled slowly, his voice lower now, quieter. "Instead, he left you in a cursed state, unable to wake, unable to die. He kept coming back... but he never told anyone." His jaw clenched. "Not until now."
I let that sink in for a moment, my heart still pounding, my body still aching. The reality of it all was settling like a slow, creeping weight in my chest.
Draco had chosen not to kill me.
But in doing so, he had left me in limbo, unable to move, unable to wake, trapped in a place worse than death.
"How long?" I asked.
The question hung between us for a moment, thick and suffocating.
Severus exhaled slowly through his nose, his gaze flickering briefly away before meeting mine again. "Weeks," he answered, his voice quieter than I had expected. "You've been trapped in that state for the entire holiday."
A cold shiver ran through me, despite the warmth of the torches flickering above. Weeks. I had been gone for weeks.
I lowered my gaze, staring blankly at my hands resting against my lap, as if expecting to see some physical proof of the time I had lost. But there was nothing—just the lingering ache in my muscles, the unsettling sensation that my body was still trying to remember how to function.
Severus shifted slightly, his fingers curling into the fabric of his robes. "I looked for you," he admitted, his voice rougher now, edged with something he rarely let show. "I knew something was wrong the moment I returned... but I couldn't get to you right away."
I glanced up at him again, catching the way his expression tightened, the way his hands twitched as if restless, as if the memory of being unable to reach me still haunted him.
"Why?" I asked, my voice quieter now, though I already knew the answer.
Severus let out a sharp breath, his fingers flexing before clenching into fists. "Because I was being watched," he said bitterly. "I couldn't act recklessly. If I had done anything suspicious, if the Dark Lord had suspected I was searching for you..." He trailed off, his jaw tightening.
The silence that followed said more than words ever could.
I knew what he meant. If Voldemort had believed, even for a second, that Severus had been looking for me, that he cared—he would have known. And if he had known, I wouldn't be sitting here now. I wouldn't be alive.
I should have expected as much, but the confirmation still left a sinking feeling in my chest.
I inhaled shakily, my voice barely above a whisper. "You thought I was dead."
Severus tensed. For the briefest moment, his entire body locked into place, as if the words had struck something deep, something unguarded. His fingers twitched—a fleeting motion, almost imperceptible.
For a moment, I thought he wouldn't answer.
Then finally he exhaled.
"Yes."
The word was quiet, rough, strained in a way that made my chest ache.
I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly tight. The idea of Severus thinking I had been gone—that I had died—was something I hadn't even considered.
A lump formed in my throat.
Severus didn't do confessions. He didn't say things like this—not unless they were pulled from him, not unless they were too real to ignore. But here he was, kneeling in front of me, his voice unsteady, his mask cracked just enough for me to see what lay beneath. He had truly believed he had lost me.
I wanted to say something, to tell him I was still here, that I had come back, but the words wouldn't come.
Instead, I murmured, "You saved me."
His expression flickered—something sharp, something conflicted.
"Did I?" His voice was quiet, almost bitter. "Because I seem to be the reason you keep needing saving."
The words sent a shiver down my spine.
His eyes locked onto mine, dark and unwavering, filled with something I couldn't quite place. "Every time you get caught in this, every time you suffer—it's because of me. Because of my choices. Because I refuse to let you go."
I stared at him, my breath caught in my throat. "Severus—"
"I am dangerous for you." He cut me off, his voice sharper now, his hands clenching at his sides as if he was holding himself back. "And yet, no matter how much I tell myself I should push you away, no matter how much I know I should—" He exhaled sharply.
I knew what he was trying to say. He couldn't push me away. Not anymore.
I swallowed against the lump in my throat, my pulse pounding in my ears. "You think I don't know that?" I whispered. "You think I don't understand the risks?"
His gaze flickered, but he said nothing.
I inhaled shakily. "I know the danger I'm in. I know what it means to be close to you. But do you really think I care?" I shook my head. "I'd rather be in danger a thousand times over than lose you."
His breath hitched, his eyes searching mine, something raw and painful flashing across his expression before he could stop it.
And then suddenly, without a word he moved.
I barely had time to react before his arms wrapped around me, pulling me against him in a way that was almost desperate, as if he had been holding himself back for too long and had finally given in.
His grip was tight, his breath uneven against my hair, his fingers pressing into my back as though reassuring himself that I was real, that I was here.
And then I felt it.
A soft, shuddering breath. The faintest tremor against my shoulder. I stilled, realizing with a jolt that Severus—always so composed, always so guarded—had tears in his eyes.
He wasn't crying. Not quite. But I felt the weight of it, the way he clung to me, the way he inhaled deeply, as if trying to absorb my very presence, to convince himself that I wasn't slipping away again.
It hurt him—what he had seen, what he had felt. Seeing me like that, lost in the torment of my past, had broken something in him. And I knew, in that moment, that this wasn't just about what had happened.
This was about everything. The years of pain. The fear. The helplessness. The guilt. And now, the unbearable relief that I was still here.
I held onto him just as tightly, my fingers digging into the fabric of his robes, grounding myself in him—in us.