*Chapter 26*: Chapter 26
Walk the Shadows -- Chapter 26
By jharad17
Disclaimer: None of this is mine. Siriously. She's rich, and I just wish.
Warning: This chapter contains semi-graphic depictions of torture and references to rape.
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Aug. 15, 6:30 pm
Fuck.
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Flashback
The boy's eyes were squeezed shut and thin tremors ran through his body. But his voice was clear as he said, 'No. You're not allowed in there.'
'Oh no you don't,' Severus growled. His patience was just about at an end. If he were to reflect on just why his ire had been raised by Potter's words, he would admit that much of it was that he disliked being thwarted. Or even attempts to thwart him. But at the moment, he used the mantra that he was helping the boy to heal.
'Legilimens.'
The stone appeared immediately, still as impossibly pitted as before, and Severus recalled an exercise from the book he'd given Potter about this particular way of blocking Legilimency. But if Potter was using it to shield all of his emotions, it was . . . unhealthy. And aggravating. Besides, his worst memories were supposed to be stored in the pensieve now. How bad could it be, really?
With this in mind, Severus attacked.
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Harry threw everything he had into protecting the layer of stone. Snape was angry, he could feel that, somehow, but he couldn't let it get to him. The stone protected him, kept him upright and breathing and conscious. Without it . . . He just could not let Snape through.
'Get away,' he snarled through gritted teeth. 'Get away from there.'
But Snape wasn't listening, and he assaulted the stone as if with a jackhammer, chopping through the upper level and exposing new cracks and weaknesses.
Harry could sense Snape's determination, but he had abject fear on his side, and it gave him added strength. He reinforced the stone with every breath, creating more and more layers, faster than Snape could dismantle them. But he couldn't see every fissure Snape created, and missed one in his haste.
Snape, however, caught it. In an instant, he was through the one chink in Harry's carefully constructed armor, and in his angered, irritated state, he had no defense against the tide of memory that washed over him. Harry felt him try to retreat, but it was no good now. No good at all. He was trapped there, under the stone.
The carousel spins lazily around, and the Inferi upon the backs of the flying gryffins and dragons mock the forms of children, with their dead flesh, dead eyes, and the Dark Lord, in the guise of his earlier self, Tom Riddle, stands before them and smiles. 'You're mine,' he whispers. 'Forever.'
But now they are in the well appointed prison and Nott is sneering at him, and raising his wand. 'Coward,' Harry calls him, and the world erupts in howling and pain, and the gurgle of blood in his throat is the loudest sound he has ever heard until he is blind and screaming, writhing on the stone floor under their curses.
How long? Hours, perhaps. How long till his mind snaps? There is nothing but the agony of the Cruciatus, but when he stops fighting the curse, he finds he can bear it better. He knows that only when he gives in completely will it cease to mean anything, will he be able to retain his sanity. 'Give in,' a high cold voice croons to him as if reading his mind. 'Everything will be better; you won't have to hurt anymore.'
The offer is tempting, but he pushes it away, shaking his head wildly. 'Never,' he rasps through his teeth, and his voice is rough and dry as a gravestone. He has to breathe through his nose, wheezing breaths full of snot and blood and tears, because his mouth is busy screaming when he can't keep his jaw clamped shut. 'I won't.'
'Never say never, widdle Harry,' sneers the grating voice of Bellatrix, and she casts another cutting curse while the agony of the Cruciatus increases. He drums his heels on the stone floor, back arching impossibly, broken fingers grasping for something, anything to ground him. But he is blind, and alone, and under their complete control.
She laughs as his skin is flayed from his body, laughs at his panic as his hands scramble to hold the pieces of himself together, laughs as someone else grabs a handful of his hair and grips his head tight in their palms, to stop his flailing, and then presses the side of his face to theirs, and his blood smears on this other's smooth skin as they rub against him like a cat. And then a tongue laps at his cheek, licking at his blood and tears with long strokes. Words are whispered into his ear like a lover's, 'You taste so good, Harry,' and he is sick, suddenly, violently sick, and still the laughter continues . . .
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With a strength born of desperation, Severus finally escaped the boy's memories, escaped the broken and cracked stone and knelt, panting for breath, on the floor of his sitting room. After some long moments, he was
