Entry tags:

100quills, ficlets, harry/severus 50.3 (joanwilder), my snarrys

FIC: Midnight
Title: Midnight (written for 100quills)
Author: joanwilder
Rating: R
Prompt Set: 50.3
Prompt: 33
Word Count: 875
Summary: It's midnight, and Severus is awake...again.

Midnight

Snape awoke in a sweat, and lay and wondered where he was for a moment. His heart pounded, then seemed to synch with the clicking of the clock at the bedside. It was then that he remembered. He rolled over and stared at the timepiece: 11:47.

He was so used to getting up at midnight that his body now woke him in advance. As he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, he thought wistfully about the nights when he'd slept from when his head hit the pillow at ten until the break of day.

Well, truthfully, he'd not done that for very long. Just for a few blessed months at the end of the war. Hadn't lasted very long.

When he'd first started getting up like this, it'd only been as a last resort. Everything else had failed, so here he was, shrugging into his robe and slippers, making his way to the kitchen where he poured out a dose of Dreamless Sleep. There in the sink stood the dirty phial from the measure of Sleeping Draught. It never lasted more than a few hours. Evidenced by the fact that he was up at midnight.

But he supposed that given how much worse it all might've turned out, he couldn't complain.

So, like he always did, he threw his cloak around his shoulders, stepped into the corridor, and lit his wand. Looking from left to right and back again, he narrowed his eyes, tilting his head to the side as if he heard something from afar. Making a noise of satisfaction, he turned to the right and took the stairs down, deeper into the dungeons.

He shivered beneath his cloak, lifting his wand high as he checked door after door, then just at the end of the corridor, he stopped at the second to last one and took a moment to watch.

Potter stood in the corner of the small room, running his hands over the damp stone walls, as if he were seeking the way out. He seemed small and shrunken, his bedraggled hair hanging in his face as he scratched at the wall, mumbling something nonsensical under his breath. He was trembling from the cold, and no small wonder: he wore just a flimsy night shirt that stopped at his knees, and was barefoot.

Snape learnt long ago to be cautious at the midnight hour. He moved silently across the room, then without speaking, he gathered Potter's hands into his own and held them firmly for a moment. Potter quieted, but shrank back against the wall. Stepping in closer, Snape furled his cloak around the shivering figure, then slowly but insistently pulled them both toward the door. After a moment of holding back, Potter obeyed, his hands clutching Snape's to the point of pain.

They shuffled back to Snape's rooms, where he stood the still somnambulant man in the kitchen and poured the Dreamless Sleep down his throat; as usual Potter resisted and Snape had to stroke his throat like a baby's to get him to swallow.

He led him back to the bed, tucked him in on one side, then slid himself in the other. It was only once they were back in the bed that Snape dared try to wake Potter, and wake him he must, otherwise he'd shortly be off again.

After experimenting with different methods, Snape had hit on the one way of waking Potter that seemed the least traumatic: no kicking or fighting, or incapacitating tremors, no weeping or argumentative confusion. God only knew he'd seen all of those often enough in the beginning.

Pulling Potter into his arms, Snape kissed him, warming the cold lips with his warm ones, gently cradling the back of Potter's head to keep him in place. Every half-minute or so, he'd pull away and scrutinize the dull, blank eyes.

Potter's usually expressive and responsive mouth made Snape feel like he were kissing a corpse, but he didn't give up. He breathed his warm breath into the hollow of his mouth, warmed his lips with his tongue and massaged the back of his neck gently with his hand.

It didn't take too long for the awareness to creep into Potter's eyes. Snape had decided months ago that it was like seeing a doll come to life. One moment they were fixed, the pupils black and tiny, and the next they were warm and damp at the corners, the blacks dilating suddenly as Potter saw him, as realization flooded his brain.

To his credit, and Snape's relief, the man no longer apologized. No, what he did was kiss Snape back, wrapping his arms and legs around him until Snape could barely breathe, and certainly couldn't move.

"Potter…" he managed to murmur into the hair at his ear, his eyes squinting in the darkness to see the clock. Potter was repeatedly winding a finger in the hair at Snape's neck, one of his falling-to-sleep rituals that Snape for some reason found comforting, almost endearing. Potter's body relaxed gradually, and when his breathing became shallow and regular, Snape gently turned them so that they were back to chest.

Snape lay in the dark, staring at the clock: 1:00.

He was wide awake.