Corridors of Time

The Corridors of Time

Among the multitudes of indignities and inconveniences visited upon him at St. Mungo's, Severus loathed the sense of timelessness the most. There was not a clock to be seen, and the lack of natural light gave the days an endless, amorphous quality. He recalled the Creation narrative his Muggle grandmother had read to him: the Creator, having fashioned the world from a void, had divided the night and the day with a simple declaration: "Let there be light." Thus time was created, and this, according to Severus' grandmother, made the Creator the all-powerful God.

At St. Mungo's, it was the various Healers and administrators, who could be seen consulting their Very Important Watches with harried frequency, who divided the night from the day: they who decided when it was time for medicine, time for food, time for a walk to the loo; they who declared daily, "Let there be light," and when they were sated, "Let there be darkness."

It was a power that Severus envied and despised. It was a power he lived by, nonetheless.

Severus fought against the timelessness by listening. In the small hours of what he supposed was morning, when all was yet dark, he would hear the soft, padding footsteps of the janitors. Then, the first dim lights would illuminate the ward, and he would hear the doors of the ward opening and shutting for the Healers making their morning rounds. He knew which day it was by which footsteps he heard: sharp, staccato clicks meant that it was Healer Smyth's day; shuffling, hurried steps meant Healer Millar (although, thankfully, he had not heard those particular footsteps in some time); quiet, steady footfalls signified that Maire would be attending.

He would endure their questions and examinations for what he assumed was fifteen minutes, after which he would await the telltale sounds of the breakfast trolley as it trundled through the hall. After breakfast, he knew to adjust the despicable hospital gown and listen for the sullen footsteps of the Healers' Assistants who came to see him to the loo and then to his bath.

When that particularly humiliating task had been discharged, Severus would lie in his bed with his eyes closed and listen carefully. He knew that at some point, after the HA was finished with him, he could count on hearing the oaken doors at the end of the hall creak open to admit visitors. It almost always felt like an eternity as he listened for brisk, determined steps to venture into the hall, steps that grew more and more hesitant as they reached his bed. He knew he would hear his privacy curtains slide slowly upon their track as his one and only visitor parted them diffidently.

Every day, Severus waged a futile battle with the expectancy that warmed his chest as he awaited those footsteps.

He did not want to be the object of a schoolgirl's pity. She had seen him at his most feeble, his absolute weakest, and he could not hide from her. Every time he heard her sturdy, resolute step in the corridor, he was possessed by the desire to rage at her until she was reduced to quivering nothingness before him. He wanted to drive her so far away that she would never again think to seek him out and accuse him silently with her warm, brown eyes or scorch him with her innocence.

But by the time her steps slowed into a timorous tiptoe just beyond his curtains, he longed to call out her name and bid her hurry. And by the time she pulled the curtains aside and peeked in anxiously, so clearly afraid of being sent away, he would release the breath he had not realized he was holding. Only then would he surrender to the joy of seeing the one, delicate filament that anchored him to a world beyond himself.

Today, he listened for the opening of the doors with a leaden feeling. He clutched his blanket around him to ward off the clamminess that crept upon him. When the doors swung open, he heard her rush onto the ward, heard her feet beating out their rhythm of youth and purpose and vitality. Today, of all days, she failed to hesitate halfway down the hall. Today, she just marched on. Severus trembled.

She stopped short when she reached his bed. Only then did she reveal the timidity Severus so relied upon. His heart seemed to stop as he waited for her to part the curtains. When her face appeared, flushed and excited, he could see her eyes shining with determination and energy. His heart raced once again.

He carefully arranged his features into a neutral expression. "Do come in, Miss Granger," he said, affecting nonchalance. She smiled shyly.

"You appear to be out of breath," he noted, taking in her appearance appreciatively. Her cheeks were uncommonly rosy, and her skin seemed to glow.

"Sorry, Professor Snape. I'm in a bit of a hurry. I have an appointment at 10:00 this morning," she rushed breathily.

Relief and disappointment struggled within him. "Oh?" he said casually. "Might I ask what time it is now?"

"It's 9:00, sir," she replied helpfully.

Less than an hour. He wondered if he could discover all that he needed to know in such little time. It seemed that he was asking for a lifetime of information; he supposed, as he thought of it, that he was.

"Yes. Well," he coughed, "thank you for visiting, Miss Granger. I hate to think I have detained you from more worthwhile pursuits." He tried...vainly, judging by Miss Granger's ill-concealed smirk...to infuse his words with sarcasm.

"I brought you some books," she said cheerfully. "I brought some Potions journals and some Muggle novels." She held the books forth with a nervous smile.

Severus accepted the books stiffly. He had been a Potions master, he knew. He could even recall some of the basic formulae for potion making. Without the use of magic, however, he had little hope of succeeding in that field again. The combination of Potions journals with Muggle novels seemed to be an insult cloaked in consideration.

"Thank you," he said hollowly. "In light of my peculiar condition, I suppose I should begin with the Muggle novels. It is quite generous of you to educate me about my new life."

Her face fell, and she looked down apologetically.

"I just thought you might be bored," she murmured. "I didn't know what books you might like." She bit her lip. "I just had a lot of Muggle books. I thought they'd be entertaining."

Miss Granger's embarrassment convinced Severus of the guilelessness of her intentions, but he could not bring himself to apologize.

"Of course," Severus mumbled. "I'm sure life as a Muggle will be quite entertaining."

Miss Granger smiled tensely as an uneasy silence swelled between them. Severus knew the clock was ticking. Within minutes, Miss Granger would be gone, on her way to her appointment, and he would be left alone with his nagging questions and faulty memories until she returned. It was tempting to allow what remained of their time to run itself down, to give himself one more day to revel in the torture of unanswered questions.

He grasped his forearm protectively as he pondered his questions. He vividly recalled the dreams of being branded by a madman. He recalled the revulsion and self-hatred he felt when, upon awaking, he found the hateful mark upon his arm, just where it had been in his dreams.

He was sometimes plagued by an overwhelming impulse to cut off the offending arm, to cleave the evidence of his treachery and distance himself from all he imagined it represented. Something told him, though, that this was no mere tattoo; this mark had been seared into his very soul.

He dreaded exposing Miss Granger's innocence to something so obviously tainted. He dreaded exposing his pollution to the excoriating light of her purity even more.

Still, he did not know how long it would take him to retrieve his lost memories, or how long it would take him to piece them all together. In one single, decisive moment, he channeled his desire for completeness into a point before it could be diffused amongst his warring emotions.

His voice sounded strange in his ears, as if it belonged to someone else, when he asked the dreadful question. "Miss Granger, do you recognize this mark?"

He rolled up his sleeve slowly and clumsily to show her the faded, mottled serpent writhing upon his arm. She drew back slightly and paled, then clasped her hands together tightly as she sought to regain composure.

"Yes," she said quietly.

"Well?" Severus snapped impatiently. "Our time is short. Please tell me what you know about it."

Miss Granger looked at him with wide eyes. He could not determine whether she was trying to decide what she saw or whether she was trying to decide what to say. She licked her lips.

"It's the Dark Mark," she said finally, her voice thick with false calm.

"And why is it on my arm, Miss Granger?" Severus demanded irritably.

She swallowed. "Lord Voldemort put it there."

Something within Severus had been waiting to hear that particular name. Every syllable thrilled and terrified him to his core, dividing him between the strange urge to hide and an even stranger sense of power and purpose. He could feel his blood pounding through his veins, could hear it thudding in his ears. Acid boiled in his stomach.

"So I was a Death Eater." The words seemed to have been coiled like a serpent in his gut, awaiting their chance to slither out of his mouth and strike. He trembled as he named himself.

"Yes," Miss Granger answered. Her eyes were large and round, as if they were trying to expand to take in the scope of the evil she saw.

Severus began to crumble. He regretted asking the question, regretted the compunction to name what he had been. He wanted nothing more than to fold himself up, over and over, until he was too small to find, too small to name.

"But you changed!" Miss Granger pleaded earnestly. She stepped toward him and leaned forward, her eyes shining with conviction. "You turned your back on Voldemort! You worked for D-Dum-bledore," she stammered self-consciously.

Dumbledore.

Miss Granger had tripped over that name before. It sparked something in Severus, something he would just as soon leave in the darkness. It was terrifying in the half-light of his memory.

He remembered the benevolent Headmaster of Hogwarts he had looked up to as a child and the formidable wizard who had held him in awe as an adult.

He had failed. He had betrayed Dumbledore. His body knew it, just as it had known he had belonged to Voldemort, for his fingers went suddenly numb and his lungs refused to surrender the breath he had just taken.

Miss Granger knew it, too.

"Dumbledore," he ground out. "Is he..."

Miss Granger's face twisted involuntarily. "He... well, in the war, he was... he died," she stuttered.

The coldness that had begun to creep upon Severus washed over him completely. Unable to either inhale or exhale, his lungs burned with trapped air.

He could barely make out Miss Granger's voice as she called to him over the icy waves. He distantly felt her warm hand slip over his.

"Professor Snape? Professor Snape!" she called, over and over, though he could hardly hear her at all. The line between them was going to snap. He was going to sink beneath this anguish, and not even she would be able to retrieve him from those depths.

"Professor, can you hear me?" she pleaded. She pulled desperately on his hand, as if the void that threatened were a physical force she could overcome with physical resistance.

He gasped and coughed as he surfaced. Miss Granger patted his hand soothingly. "You did all you could, Professor. Dumbledore was proud of you."

Severus could not reconcile Dumbledore's pride with the repellent mark on his arm. He had revered the man, had wanted to make him proud, just as he had wanted to make his father proud.

Why, then, had he ever taken that mark and all that it meant?

He sharply withdrew his hand from Miss Granger's grasp. She knew something about Dumbledore's death, something she didn't want to tell him.

"Tell me, Miss Granger," he wheezed. "How did Dumbledore die?"

She pursed her lips and swallowed, mulling over her answer.

"Uh, well, it was... well, it was at the beginning of the war. No, not really at the beginning," she babbled, "but, oh, the Ministry didn't really, up to then..."

Snape silenced her with an impatient wave of his hand. "How did he die, Miss Granger?" he growled.

She startled and raised a hand to her mouth. "There was an attack on Hogwarts," she said, her voice tiny and tremulous. "He... uhm... well, he had a plan..."

"Of course Dumbledore had a plan!" Severus boomed. "Albus Dumbledore always had a plan! So what the fuck in hell happened to him, Miss Granger?"

She began to shake.

He braced himself for her answer. Just as she opened her mouth, the curtains parted. Miss Granger gave an audible sigh of relief when Maire slipped in.

"Do pardon me, Mr. Snape. I shouldn't like to interrupt you, but I needed to speak to both you and Miss Granger," she said quietly. She studied both of them intently. Though he had been told that the area around his bed had been warded for privacy, he could not shake the thought that she knew every word that had passed between him and Miss Granger.

"Have you come to tell me that I am miraculously cured?" Severus asked caustically. "Or have you come to tell me that, impossible though it seems, my... condition is worse?"

Maire smiled placidly. "Things could always be worse, Mr. Snape."

Her unflappable calm and cheery tone brought his memories of Dumbledore to the front of his thoughts once more.

Dumbledore. Dead.

He shook off the thought as the cold waves of grief pushed against his mind again.

"Of course. I could be a paralyzed, amnesiac Squib," he retorted sourly.

"No one has called you a Squib, Mr. Snape. As I've explained already, your inability to channel your magic..."

"... Is an uncommon, but not unheard-of, after-effect of trauma, either physical or emotional, and should be reversed with a simple tincture of time," he quoted back to her in a singsong voice.

"I am so glad you understand!" she said. "I do not wish to intrude upon your visit any more than I absolutely must, so I shall get quickly to the point." Her smile faded into a thoughtful expression as she looked at Severus and Miss Granger.

"St. Mungo's has been very pleased with your progress, Mr. Snape," she said evenly. "The Board of Directors has decided that you should be able to finish convalescing at home."

Her words bored into Severus, creating an empty hole. Home. He didn't know that he'd ever truly been home.

"You are being released next week," Maire said solemnly. The smile in her eyes sunk beneath weariness.

"What do you mean?" Miss Granger shrieked. "He can't go home! He's yet to recover the movement in his leg, and he still has seizures, not to mention the fact that can't do magic. St. Mungo's can't release him just like that! He still needs constant care!"

Severus stiffened angrily as she enumerated his maladies.

"Do shut up, Miss Granger," he snapped. "Healer Glamorgan has my entire file at her service. No one needs you to outline it."

Miss Granger gaped at him, hurt and dumbfounded. Her inability to respond, to engage his anger, infuriated him all the more. His hands clinched. His muscles shook. Every fiber of his being strained against the impulse to throw something at her.

"I am aware of Mr. Snape's difficulties," Maire responded peaceably, "and I have informed the Board of his condition. They have deemed that he has healed sufficiently enough to be discharged."

"But he still needs care!" Miss Granger protested weakly.

"You are correct, Miss Granger," Maire countered. "The Board believes that he might receive more suitable care from a private nurse in his own home."

"You keep mentioning what the Board says," Miss Granger said irritably. "You're his Healer. What do you say?"

Maire blinked. "I have no say, Miss Granger," she said tiredly. "I have been informed that my presence is no longer required, and I am to go back into retirement."

"That's absurd!" Miss Granger gasped. "He's a war hero! He deserves adequate treatment until he is healed!"

"St. Mungo's believes that he has received adequate treatment. Please," Maire implored, "it is not within my power to override the Board's decision. I have made my recommendations, and they have arrived at a different opinion. You may, of course, lodge a protest with the Board."

"Trust me, I most certainly shall!" Miss Granger shouted.

"Miss Granger!" Severus barked. "Stop screeching this instant. I do not appreciate you speaking of me as if I am not even here. I may be an invalid and a Squib," he said bitterly, "but my intellect is intact, I assure you."

Tears welled in Miss Granger's eyes. Maire cocked her head to one side and looked at him thoughtfully.

"Your friend means well, Mr. Snape," she said. "She only wants to make certain that you have the care you deserve."

Severus eyed her stonily as she continued. "All that remains for me to do, Mr. Snape, before you and I are both ushered out of St. Mungo's hallowed halls, is to ascertain that you have adequate lodging awaiting you when you are discharged."

Despite her tranquil demeanor, Severus could see the anger and displeasure in her eyes. She had been kind to him, and he had come to regard her with esteem and something else that came close to affection. He would not miss St. Mungo's, but he did not look forward to losing one of the two people in his life who accorded him some small respect.

"Professor McGonagall has said that you would always have a place at Hogwarts," Miss Granger said shakily.

"No," Severus said quickly. Night after night, Hogwarts hosted his most vivid nightmares. He had no desire to see its stark reality.

"Hogwarts is listed in your files as your most recent residence, Mr. Snape," Maire said. "Have you another place to go?"

Miss Granger broke in. "My best friend has a house, and he'd be honored to have you stay, Professor."

"No!" Severus boomed. "Miss Granger, I do not require the charity of teenage dunderheads!"

"The fact remains, Mr. Snape," Maire countered, raising her voice slightly, "that you must have a verifiable address to be released to. It is my duty to assure that you are well-cared-for after your release."

Severus fixed her with a smoldering glare. "Well," he said after a long pause, "seeing as I must now live as a Muggle, I suggest that you abandon me to the tender mercies of the Muggle social welfare network." He smirked at Maire, whose eyes hardened perceptibly, and at Miss Granger, who gawked in horror. "I find such an idea infinitely preferable to living amongst dull-witted adolescents."

He felt a nauseating giddiness at the wounded look in Miss Granger's eyes.

His happiness died as her inborn obstinacy demonstrated itself anew. She turned to Maire, her eyes ablaze. "You just said that he had to have a verifiable address in order to be released," she pointed out combatively.

Maire met her rejoinder with a wry smile. "So I did."

"So, what happens if he doesn't have an address?" Miss Granger demanded excitedly. "What happens if he has nowhere to go, no one to care for him?"

"He would have to stay here," Maire replied impassively.

"So, he would have to stay here, and St. Mungo's would have to continue caring for him!" Miss Granger crowed triumphantly.

Maire smiled sympathetically. "St. Mungo's would have to keep him, Miss Granger," she said quietly. "But," she broke into Miss Granger's next outburst, "he would be kept on the Janus Thickey Ward. He would have room and board, but no further therapeutic interventions."

Severus' head throbbed. Life was bleak, indeed, when his options consisted of subsisting on the goodwill of teenagers or residing permanently amongst the broken and insane inmates of the Janus Thickey Ward.

Miss Granger stood rooted in place. Maire gazed at him apologetically. Every line in her face was delineated with perfect clarity. For the first time, Severus considered how old she must be. He looked between the two women, from the younger, whose life stretched out in seemingly endless miles before her, to the elder, whose journey was mostly complete. He had the absurd thought that he walked a narrow wire between the two of them. He closed his eyes to ward off the sudden sensation of vertigo.

He was the first to break the hushed gloom. "You have somewhere to be, Miss Granger," he said sharply.

She turned slowly to look at him with her large eyes, her features fixed and immobile.

She blinked and shook her head as if she were emerging from a stupor. "You're right," she said with a distant, high-pitched voice.

"I must go," she affirmed. Color flooded her face, and she bit her lip before she turned and fled through the curtains.

"Mr. Snape, I apologize again for this inconvenient interruption. I shall see you again in a few hours to oversee your physical therapy," Maire said softly. "I must go now. Please try to have a good morning."

Sullenly, defiantly, Severus stared hard into Maire's eyes. With no discernible uneasiness, she held his gaze. An understanding of sorts passed between them: she sincerely apologized for the discontinuation of his care; she wished the best for him; she would tolerate no intimidation by him, however. He saw all of this and more, and felt that she understood him mutually: understood that he hated depending on anybody, and was nevertheless dependent upon everybody; that he wanted to go home, but had no idea where home might be; that he was frightened and resentful of life without magic.

The unexpected insight...not only into Maire, but also into himself...would have ordinarily stoked his bitterness to greater heat. Instead, it disarmed and calmed him. The resentment and anxiety still buzzed within the recesses of his mind, but for the moment he ignored them and rested in the tranquil cocoon that Maire's understanding had wrapped around him.

She smiled at him kindly. "I must go, Mr. Snape. I'll see you soon."

He found himself returning her smile half-heartedly as he nodded. She slipped through his curtains, and he listened as her footsteps became fainter and fainter.

A combination of exhaustion...wrought no doubt by the morning's drama...and the ennui inherent in hospital life overcame Severus.

Home, home, home, he thought groggily. Where is my home? Home is where the heart is, they say. Is the possession of one...heart or home...predicated upon the possession of the other?

He drifted along with the babbling current of thought until it converged into a repetitious eddy and lulled him to sleep.

"It's time, Severus," Miss Granger whispered in his ear. He rolled over to face her, noticing the mischievous smirk that played on her lips.

"What of your appointment?" he quizzed. "I'm sure you have plenty of loud, well-intended outrage to unleash upon some poor soul."

Her laughter tinkled pleasantly.

"I've no intention of unleashing outrage," she answered. "I would, however, like to unleash some of this pent-up energy." She looked pointedly at his crotch where his erection strained against the thin fabric of his gown.

"You should leave, Miss Granger," he purred. "My therapy is set to commence some time in the very immediate future, and I doubt you'd like to be caught out."

"This is your therapy," she whispered seductively into his ear. She ran her fingers down his arm and along his hip, grazing him lightly with her nails. "Besides," she said, "it's not down to you to say what time it is."

Power and magic surged through Severus' muscles. He smirked. There was no need for her to know his power...yet. "Indeed?" he droned. "Am I to have no choices at all?"

"Choices," she murmured, appearing to consider his words. "Dumbledore said we always have choices. Our choices are what make us..." Her hands were slipping over his upper thigh, pushing up the hem of his gown bit by bit.

"So he did," Severus snapped.

Miss Granger affected demureness. "And I choose to spend my time seeing to your needs," she said sweetly. She lowered her head to his cock, which jutted desperately into the cold, hospital air. Her lips felt like heaven...

"No," he growled, yanking her up by her hair. "It's time you learned a lesson about toying with men." He pulled her to him and rolled her over in one neat maneuver, gratified by the trepidation and desire warring in her eyes. He stared into them piercingly.

He leaned in and nipped her earlobe. "Never," he said and trailed his tongue down her neck, "assume," he breathed against her collarbone, "that you know," his lips grazed the swell of her breast, "my needs." He bit down upon her nipple, and she arched into him. "Tell me about Dumbledore."

"I... can't..." she panted.

"Oh, but I think you can." His hands slid up the soft flesh of her inner thigh. She moaned.

"C-c-can't," she huffed helplessly.

"You can," he slipped his fingers into her warm, wet core, "and you will."

He pushed up her gown and thrust into her just as she disappeared.

He found himself in a playground. He knew the place well; he'd visited it many times before. He was drawn, as always, to the swings.

At first he couldn't see her. Perhaps she hadn't come today. Perhaps she had better things to do.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw the unmistakable, flame-like streak of her hair. He whipped around and watched. She was not to be seen. He waited. He saw another flash of auburn as she moved through the copse of trees beside the playground, and he sprinted after her.

He found her in the middle of the thicket, standing with her back to him. He stared for a while at her long, dark red hair, mesmerized by the way it caught and transformed the sunlight. She was like stained glass, something that somehow filtered and sanctified the beams into something cool and cleansing.

His stained-glass girl turned slowly to face him with a sad, little smile. He stared longingly into her green eyes and drank in her innocence. All thoughts of Miss Granger and her unnerving disappearance vanished.

She was a little girl, no older than nine or ten years old, yet he felt that he had known her forever. Her eyes glowed with recognition. If he could stay with her, he might be able to scrape the patina of his experience away and rediscover the innocence he had lost. He would slough off the dead layers of his existence and begin anew with a fresh skin.

Her quiet gaze suggested that she knew him, that she held his past in her unmarred hand. She would unlock the doors of his memory. He would forget Miss Granger, who would disappear at the most inconvenient times, and seek his answers with her.

He opened his mouth to say her name, but it would not come. It danced teasingly upon his tongue, something he ought to know, but would not allow itself to be uttered.

He could only speak one word.

"Dumbledore," he whispered.

Her eyes flickered. He stepped towards her excitedly. "Dumbledore," he said again. "What happened to Dumbledore?" She turned away.

"Don't leave!" he cried desperately. She kept walking, disappearing into the trees as he followed.

He found himself standing on a deserted cobblestone street. The red haired girl was nowhere to be seen.

He turned to take in his surroundings. A deserted row of houses seemed to stare at him through windows like dark, malevolent eyes. He felt an uneasy kinship with this place, a kinship he longed to sever. The hairs on his neck stood up as he backed slowly away.

He turned and found himself face to face with a scowling, sallow-skinned woman. It took him a moment to recognize his mother.

"Welcome home, Severus," she sneered. "We've been expecting you." Her mouth stretched open in a malignant grin, displaying rows of crooked, rotting teeth.

He awoke in a cold sweat, unable to dismiss the feeling that something was chasing him down, something that would not rest until it had devoured him completely.

Author's Notes