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CHALLENGES > Off-Site Challenges > Potter Place's Anything Goes Challenge
Characters: Original Character Genre(s): Alternate, Universe, Drama Warnings: None  (Read 69 Reviews)| Print Chapter  | Print Entire Story |
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A/N: Many thanks to my betas, Dreamy_Dragon, Sampdoria, and Amor Eternal. I would be lost in a jungle of commas and gerunds without you, my dears!  To make this clear: I am a bed, and I belong to Severus Snape. I am not a four-poster. No, not me. Those four-poster beds are poncy, in my opinion. Too ugly they are, too soft, and far too posh. I am a proper bed, and I have been with my master since the day he was born. His mother gave birth to him on the bedroom floor, and his grandfather put the baby boy on my sheets, naked and dirty as he was and mewing like a kitten. Is it a surprise that I have loved him ever since? I am made of sapient pearwood, and my master's grandfather built me for his first and only grandchild. He couldn't stand the thought that his heir would lie in the broken cradle that stood in the nursery. He said, and I quote here, "The boy needs a proper bed, a bed which will accompany him throughout his life." So with his own hands the old man built a bed that suited his wishes when he learned from his daughter Eileen that she was pregnant. Although he disagreed with her choice of a husband, he was so very happy to hear that there would soon be a child in his house. For some reason, he had thought his daughter would prefer not to have children. He might have even considered the possibility that Eileen didn't know how to produce offspring. Well, he was wrong. And when she told him she was pregnant and had left her husband and asked him if she could move back home, he bought a tree and cut it into planks and carved the planks into a bed for his baby grandson. It took him weeks to make me as he used no magic at all. Which was a good decision his magic would have interfered with mine, and maybe I would have been nothing but a piece of furniture otherwise. Once I was finished, I was put into a small room in the attic his former workroom. The walls were painted in a friendly yellow, the light wood of the floor was shining softly, and I knew I liked it in there. My boy's grandfather threw out his worktable, his tools, the old chair. Instead, he added bookshelves and pictures and a slender wardrobe. There were toys and fluffy animals and books. A big teddy bear sat on my pillow, all the while I was waiting for the one who would sleep in me. The only window in this nice, warm room faced east, and on the windowsill the old man had placed a wooden tractor. He loved my master from the first moment on. Maybe he loved him even before. And my master felt safe in his bright and sunny room. The sunbeams tickled his nose, and he always woke with a sneeze. My master loved the sun. He always tried to catch the light, and I had to prevent him from falling to the ground more than once. I am intelligent; I know that little babies must not fall to the floor. He was such a cute little boy. Whenever his grandfather entered the room, my master smiled all over his face and raised his little arms to be lifted up and thrown high into the air. His grandfather never dropped him, luckily I would have bumped his shins if he hadn't been careful! Beautiful times. I know my master sometimes dreams of this happy past he sleeps deep and peaceful then, doesn't toss and turn like he normally does. I can feel the smile on his face when he dreams of his granddad. But it happens so very rarely. I fear he is about to forget the old man. Well, his grandfather died when my master was five years old, and from then on, things went downhill. First of all, my master's father moved in with his wife she couldn't or didn't want to support herself alone. And his first action was to push me into another, smaller room without windows. He swore when he did it I am heavy and I guess I can be glad Tobias Snape didn't chop me into pieces. But then, destroying me would have meant having to buy a new bed for the boy, and Tobias hated to waste money. So he kept me and took my master's room for himself. He needed the sunny room he said, and Eileen didn't object. She never did, not even when he hit her son. All my master's toys were thrown away. His father said only girls had a teddy bear. Not even my master's tears could change his mind. The teddy vanished, the tractor, the picture books. Only I remained. I tried to comfort the boy as best as I could. Still, he cried many nights. He still does, sometimes, in the small hours of the night, although he is a grown man now and for different reasons. I dislike it when he cries; I wish I could soothe him. When my master grew up, he managed to smuggle some books into his room and hid them under the mattress. He began to read, sometimes all night long naturally, I disagreed with this behaviour and occasionally lured him into sleep by humming a lullaby. I know I wasn't supposed to do that, but if I don't look after him, who else does? Exactly nobody. He is alone in the world; all alone, apart from me. When my master turned into a teenager, he brought home a friend every now and then and only when his mum was out shopping. His father had left by then, of course. Luckily. The man was angry, aggressive, and brutal. More than once he hit my master with his belt. So very often, my master crawled into his bed, hid under the blanket, and tried to control his tears. It was not easy. I know he ached; I know that sometimes he was bleeding. His mother never said a word, and although I am only made of wood, I do not understand how a woman cannot protect her own child. But instead of cheering when her husband left, she begged and screamed and pleaded with him to stay. He didn't. My boy was ten years old back then, and he was glad that his father was gone. He hoped things would get better, hoped his mum would finally begin to love him again. She didn't. Or maybe she couldn't. She was a disturbed woman. Maybe, if her father had lived longer, things would have been different. As a teenager, my master didn't smile that often anymore. Only when his friend was around the girl he was happy. He showed her his few books, he talked to her, they sat on me and fantasised about Hogwarts, the wizard school. He went away when he was eleven, and I missed him dearly. But he came home often and told me about this school and the other students and how badly they treated him. He fled the school because of them during the holidays, naturally, and sometimes even on weekends, although he wasn't allowed to do that. He came home to sleep in his own bed. He slept, curled up in the corner, and he didn't know what was worse: home or school. During two or three summers, Lily came into my master's room, until they were both fifteen. He dreamed of her by then wet dreams, I must admit, but then, having wet dreams is normal for a teenage boy. I didn't mind. In fact, I hoped he could persuade her to sleep with him. It would have been good for him to share his nights with someone else but me and his Dark Arts books. Then, one night, he came home and was devastated. Instead of going to bed, he sat on the floor. He was in a bitter mood. Sometimes, he smashed his fists onto the floor. Cursing and swearing, he told me that Lily had fallen in love with someone else. Stupid girl. Hadn't she seen how beautiful my master, my boy was? Tall and lean, with raven-black hair, charcoal black eyes. And his intelligence! The way he smiled when she was with him was she blind, stupid, cruel? I wanted to hit her, kick some sense into her. But she never came back. Apparently, she married someone else. Had a child. Got herself killed. She should have stayed with my master. He would have loved her, would have protected her. I regret that she is gone, but my master rarely thinks of her anymore. Only her eyes haunt him in his sleep, and I know that he only pretends to have forgotten her. Maybe, if she had stayed with him, he wouldn't have turned to the Dark Arts. Potions were fine with me, but that interest in evilness and cruelty worried me. That his schoolmates still behaved like monsters didn't make it easier for him, either. I don't excuse his actions. He was wrong to banish kindness from his heart. He deliberately became cold and nasty. Although I can understand why it happened. But he was not bad. Never. And never evil. Then he took the Dark Mark. For his mum. She had flirted with the Dark Arts for years, and my boy thought he could impress her by taking the mark. Or not impress her; win her love, rather. Her approval; get a smile, or even a hug. When he told her, she was too drunk to hear him. If he hadn't taken that cursed mark, he wouldn't have become a spy. Being a spy changed him for the worse, and Lily's death broke him. Spying made him bitter and drove him into solitude. In less than a year, he had learned he could trust no one apart from the Headmaster. In less than a year, he had turned away from every other human being, had buried himself in his dungeons, and had only taken me with him as a reminder of his old life. In this one year, when he was about twenty years old, my master became the man he is today: the feared Potions master, the spy, the Dark Lord's servant. He took on three jobs and hated each one of them. Spying for the Dark Lord was the worst. He became the perfect liar; he learned how to betray, to hurt, to torture. And he was tortured himself. So many times my master came back to his rooms, crawling in on all fours, bleeding, only half-conscious. I awaited him in his private chambers. He was fond of me, and occasionally, when I could be certain that he wouldn't realise it due to his injuries, I eased his pain with my magic. The Dark Lord proved to be a cruel master, but Albus Dumbledore didn't allow my boy to quit. "When Tom is dead; when Harry has won," the Headmaster always said. Maybe he wasn't a trustworthy man after all. My master began to truly hate his life. His dreams became sheer terror, his sleep nothing but shallow hopes. Some nights, he wouldn't sleep at all. Often, he took a potion to prevent nightmares. Tossing and turning, tossing and turning all night long. I wished I could cradle him like his granddad had done when my master had been a little boy. The old man had taken him into his strong arms, had whispered him to sleep with tiny, funny little stories and had stayed with him long after my boy had found his way into dreamland. With gentle hands, his grandfather had soothed him when he was frightened and kissed away the tears when my boy had hurt himself. But I am only a bed. I can't do much more than be there when my master needs me. ************************* A few weeks ago, my master killed Albus Dumbledore, a man he considered a friend. His only friend, actually. The thought of bringing death to Dumbledore tormented him. Naturally, as I am the only one who is always there to listen without judgement, he had told me he would have to do it. Had murmured it into my pillows, dreamed about it, and even fled into the bathroom to throw up at the simple thought of it. It scared him, but he never considered not doing it. And when he got the call from Dumbledore, when he knew it was time, he calmly stepped out into the dark corridor to fulfil his duty. He didn't come back that night. I knew he had performed the Killing Curse and had fled as planned. Fled to his other master, the Dark one, the one I hated nearly as much as he did. The following weeks were awful for me I had never been that lonely before, and naturally, I feared for him. Apart from me, no one else knew why my master had killed Albus Dumbledore. Apart from me, everyone loathed him. So what if someone killed him? What if they found him and put him into this nasty prison I've heard rumours about? What if, what if I could not stop thinking about my boy, and I could do nothing to ease my fears. But he came back, safe and sound. If I were a dog, I would have leaped around him, wagging my tail. He slept in me again. And he still had nightmares. Now he was Headmaster of Hogwarts. He had to carry the burden of keeping the students safe without letting his master know that he was doing it. The pressure upon him became immense. I didn't understand everything of the things happening, but that much was clear: the Dark Lord was alive, and the final battle was close. Green meadows, how much I feared this battle. And he did as well, although he didn't show it. During the day he was all cool and controlled, but at night, he hid under the duvet as he had done when he was a child. The final battle. So many screams, so many deaths. I heard them fight even down in my dungeons. My master wanted to be amongst them, wanted to protect them as he had done for the better part of a year. But he got summoned to his master. Suddenly, he clutched his arm in pain, and I knew he would go. And because I could not stand to be parted from him again, to be left in the dark about his fate, I linked with him in a way only I can manage, as I have magic of my own. I went with him and stayed behind at the same time. I needed to know what would happen to him. He was killed. Just like that. Walking with open eyes into a trap, he found the Dark Lord playing with that Elder Wand. He knew he would die there and then. But being killed by the snake? How horrible this world can be. Who would be mad and awful enough to kill a follower, a man one considered a worthy servant, in the way the Dark Lord killed my master? I get the creeps, thinking about that snake. My master had seen her Nagini, that's her name devouring dead people with his own eyes. Getting bitten by her the pain was immense, and the venom rushed through my boy's veins with thunderous speed. Breaking to his knees; losing consciousness. Trying to gather his memories so the boy, Harry Potter, could win after all. And this lousy, worthless master of his, this Dark Lord, killed my boy using a snake! He died on the dusty floor of the Shrieking Shack, bleeding out his life and his memories whilst Harry Potter was watching. Imagine this end, this bitter, useless, worthless end. It still makes me angry. No one took care of him. No one held his hand in his death hour. The children ran away, leaving him behind, alone and dying. Afterwards, when the battle was over, no one went looking for him. No one found him. No one carried him into the Great Hall, where all the other fallen heroes were taken. They left him in the Shrieking Shack, forgotten, unwanted, as he had been most of his life. The following morning, when he was cold and stiff, they sent an undertaker to get him. Not even someone who had known him. Although they knew by then that my master had been a good man all his life, they ignored him even in his death. The undertaker dragged him along, down into the dungeons, and dumped him on his bed like a pile of rubbish. No one was with him; no one washed him or put fresh clothes on him for his funeral, although he was covered in blood and dirt. No one came and made sure his death was honoured. No one mourned him. No one grieved. I feel his weight on the mattress. I feel the coldness seeping from his flesh. I feel the absence of breath, heartbeat, and brain activity. And and I cannot stand it! So I reach out for him and find his cold, blood-crusted wrist that hangs over my frame. My boy is dead, but his skin is touching me, my wood and I I no, I don't exactly know what I am doing. All I am certain of is that I feel his touch and touch him back. Tiny roots sprout from my wood; there is still juice in me although my tree was cut so many years ago. I grow and pierce, push and penetrate. From my frame into my master's wrist I grow, like a sapling grows into soft, wet earth. There is no blood well, no fresh blood at least. His blood has stopped to flow hours ago, but I don't care. I want to be there for him as I always was. I pull his hand closer, his wrist; I taste his blood and the dust he is covered with. Grief and sadness wash through me and thus, carried by the roots I grow into him, through him. I feel the coldness of his flesh; I hear the stillness of his heart. His lungs are quiet; his mind is empty, black. Blackness lingers everywhere inside him; blackness born out of death. Only I am here. I grow more roots, bind his wrist to my frame, and send my juice into my boy's body. It seems to me as if I am him, part of him, as if I could walk inside him like a man would walk through an abandoned house. I touch his veins and the still, unmoving blood. I sense his broken eyes; I whisper along under his skin, and I weep for him. Such a waste, such a tragedy; and no one apart from a bed realises it. I grow more roots and tell leaves to build a bracelet round his left hand. I pierce his pale flesh again and again and so erase the mark on the inside of his wrist. Simply cut it out. He always hated that mark, from the day he had taken it. For his mother's sake he had done it as she had ordered him to do so. Lying bitch that she had been, she had told him the Dark Lord would kill her if he didn't take the mark. He hadn't believed her, but he loved her, and so he had gone to this madman and had thrown away his life. What I do right now penetrate his flesh with my roots would have hurt him under other circumstances, but as he is dead it doesn't matter anymore. He does not feel pain, and he cannot hinder me. With sharp edges, bark like razor blades, I cut out the mark from his flesh, leaving a hole the size of one of my leaves. Like a man would erase his initials out of a tree's bark with a knife, I erase this abomination from my boy's skin, and I am proud of it. It is an act of love. I don't want him to be buried with this mark. Blood drops to the floor, more blood, thick and slow, and I cannot let this happen. He has bled enough his neck was ripped open by the fangs of that snake and I will not allow one more drop falling to the ground. So I begin to heal the wound, using his body's capacity to do so. A human's body is a miraculous thing, able to heal itself even from severe damage. I know that and think that maybe it might work even now, hours after he has taken his last breath. I nudge here and pull there; I begin to weave threads between bone and flesh and order his cells to fill the gaps. This is how I want it, and my juice mingles with his blood. My juice, pulsating with life, takes his blood along, and there is not much difference between this and telling a blossom to bloom or a twig to grow. His blood begins to sing, to answer the call of life. It is like a tree waking up after the winter. My master, my little boy, is dead, but his body remembers how it feels to be alive with the help of my life energy. His body is closing the wound in his wrist, the wound I have caused initially, and I am happy because now, he will be buried whole, not only without the Dark Mark, but without a wound as well. Holding him tight, I am about to let go of him when I become aware of the other wound, the one in his neck. I have felt it before, of course, and as I have just healed one wound, I consider that I could as well heal this one, too. So I do. And I am satisfied with my work. How much I will miss him. Will they throw me out of his dungeons when a new Potions master comes to teach at Hogwarts? Will they carry away his books, his ingredients, his clothes? Will they continue hating him? Will they ever find out who he has been and what he has sacrificed for them? So much anger wells up in me, so much hate at the world's injustice how can the world allow my boy to end up like this? Will they bury him at all, or will they burn him to ashes? I have forgotten that I am still entwined with him. I have forgotten how powerful hate can be, and I have forgotten that I am made of magical wood. Emotions wash through me and thus through my master; emotions strong enough to cause a furious heartbeat. I jump at that. A dead man coming back to life is nothing one endures easily, not even if one is made of a sapient pearwood. One single beat, and his heart is still again. I could ignore it. I can't. I do it again I send more emotions, strong ones, beautiful ones. I think of his grandfather and how happy my boy had been, cradled in the old man's arms. I think of the many times his mother's father had read bedtime stories to his grandson. I remember his grandfather's fragrance, mellow and mild and sweet tobacco, chocolate, and honey. I know my master has forgotten those mingled scents. I give them back to him. Another beat. Hesitant, but there. I think about his first room, the one with the yellow walls and the eastward window. I think of his teddy bear and his toy wand. I remind him of the girl, Lily, because he has ripped her out of his heart and out of his mind. Doing so has hardened him; I give her back to him. Her and the long afternoons they have spent sitting on me, talking. The colour of her hair and the sound of her voice. I give him back the kiss she once gave him he has not forgotten it, but I consider it important to refresh his memory. Another beat. Less hesitant. Stronger than the last. And his mum I show her to him before she became bitter and cruel. I show him her smile when she looked at him, late at night, whilst he was asleep. Her face, heart-shaped and beautiful. Two beats in a row. This time, it is his blood that takes my juice along. His heart is pounding like a drum, his lungs take a deep breath, and deep in his brain a tiny spark of life occurs. He is not dead not anymore. Magic. Magic works here, and I don't mind at all. Only when his heart begins to beat on a regular basis, only when his lungs enfold and draw in fresh air repeatedly, only when his eyelids flutter, I realise what I have done. I have given him back his life and his memories, but I have changed him as well. I have strengthened the good times and kept the bad times in the shadow. Pain and torture, humiliation and embarrassment so strong before, and now nothing but faint ghosts without the strength to hurt. His broken heart mended because I have shown him how deeply he has loved this girl Lily. The hate he has once felt for the boys who have played pranks on him mellowed to a grumble because I have reminded him of the one boy, the werewolf, who has never done him any harm, and whom he has liked some decades back. My master, my boy, wakes with a smile on his face, wakes from death, and I would have wept with relief if only I had eyes. So as not to startle him, I order my roots to retreat, tell the leaves round his wrist to shrivel and die. I let go of him. Finally, after hours of the closest contact imaginable, I shun away. I have been him, and he is alive again because I have never been dead. I can feel his heartbeat, I can feel him shiver, I hear him breathe, and I see in his mind that he remembers how he died. And instantly, I put a veil over those memories, burry them deep inside his mind. I think it is enough that I know about his death hour. He does not need to remember more than the basics. He won't have to dream about it. He lies on his bed, the fingers of his left hand lightly caressing my frame. Weak as grass he is, his touch gentle as a ladybird landing on a tree's branch. Darkness enwraps him as he stares at the ceiling, but for the first time since his grandfather died, he is not afraid in the dark. I have not only given him back his life. I have changed reality, as well. I, a bed. But then, I am made from sapient pearwood. We don't give up. Never. And we don't abandon the ones we love. My master is still Headmaster of Hogwarts obviously, as Albus Dumbledore is dead, and because my master loves this school. He is the perfect man for the job, and he is very, very good. Stern, naturally, as sternness is his character. But never unjust and never cruel. He cares for the ones under his wing, he cares for the ones he is teaching. He has changed, and he would be the first to agree with that statement. Since the night he died, he is a different man. Of course only I know why. He has found love. Or love has found him you may interpret this to your liking. Fact is that he does not sleep alone in his bed anymore. Fact is that if he does, he doesn't mind. No more nightmares. He sleeps deeply and peacefully when he sleeps. When his woman is with him, they have fun. They like to play, those two. They laugh a lot in bed, and occasionally, he spellbinds her to my posts and pleasures her until she's even too exhausted to scream with lust. I like that it is a lot better than hearing my boy scream with fear or pain in the small hours of the morning. His woman a former student of his seems to be very fond of him. Often, she wakes him with kisses, delighted at his reaction to her touch. He likes to be kissed. I know it. He had forgotten it, but I have reminded him. She is not the only one who sleeps in my master's bed. There is another one a wizard who regularly stays for the night. Or the day. Not that much laughter when he is around. Their relationship is more tender, more on the quiet side. For hours, this wizard caresses my master, and he melts under the gentle touch of his lover. They have known each other for a long time, but only recently they share love. I am glad. My boy needs to be loved by humans, not only a bed. And now there are two who would do everything for him just as he would do everything for them. Neither of them minds the other one being there. I wait for the day when they take my master in the middle and make it clear to him that I am big enough for three. ************************* Since the night my boy died, four years have passed. Last night he cried again. Tears of joy, tears of happiness. His woman no, his wife now is with child. I hope she will choose me as the right place to give birth. Here in the bed of Severus Snape is the only place where my boy's child should be born, so I can love and protect the little one as well as I love and protect its parents. A/N: Clarification this is not what I had in mind when I read the prompt. My intention was to scribble down a short and naughty fic about Snape's nightly activities, observed by his indignant, prudish bed. Some handcuffs, a few orgasms, maybe a bit of spanking. Nothing more. Harmless stuff. Well, Snape's bed had other plans. It turned out to be loving and caring, with a will of its own. It wanted this story told correctly. The bed talked; I listened and wrote down what it had to say. I hope you don't mind. I had no choice. Oh, and it is not prudish at all. That the bed is made out of sapient pearwood is a tribute to the wonderful and amazing Terry Pratchett. If you don't know him: I highly recommend "Hogfather" and nearly everything else he has written about the Disk World. ************************* Used prompts: 13. Write a fic from a non-human POV. Some ideas are: Crookshanks, Hedwig, Hermes, the Squid, Mrs. Norris, or even someone's wand! 57. Write a story that describes Severuss childhood bedroom or his dorm when he was a student, or his digs as a university student (if he went to one) before he started teaching at Hogwarts? |
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