∞ 1. The Fourth Awakening ∞
"Not. Again."
The house-elf with the infamously foul temper — and the even more deplorable name, Madbey — clenched his bony fingers into fists, as though he might choke reality itself.
A whirlwind of images, colours, sounds, and scents swept him away—a chaotic maelstrom of memories far too vast for a single existence, yet painfully, intimately familiar.
He tasted blood. He caught the foul stench of a snake's breath. He heard a final, rattling exhalation.
And then came the pain. A whole spectrum of it.
A potpourri of physical and mental torment, so artfully assembled that even an experienced masochist would have deemed it excessive.
Madbey gagged. Nausea welled up inside him like a poorly brewed restorative draught.
"The Guardians of Eternity...," he gasped, "...can go whistle."
Time had long since lost all meaning.
It had degenerated into a thick, shapeless, colourless mush that surrounded him like poorly stirred custard.
Only the memory remained. Persistent. Intrusive.
A shadow that followed him, regardless of what form he happened to take
It wasn't the first time.
Truly not.
Madbey — the house-elf he had been until mere moments ago, for reasons known only to divine providence and which he himself considered a cosmic joke — sighed gloomily.
What fate would be inflicted upon him now?
In what form would he be cast into the world this time?
As a mountain troll, perhaps?
He snorted.
It would be an improvement, at least.
He was vaguely aware that his body was being moved.
Not by himself — at the moment, he was about as capable of motion as a corpse — but by external forces he could neither see nor name.
Sounds reached him, muffled and distorted, as if travelling through several metres of water. Behind his closed eyelids, light and shadow flickered—an erratic play that irritated rather than soothed him.
Everything felt wrong.
As if he were lying beneath a layer of ice.
Or wrapped in cotton wool.
Or — which seemed most likely — as if a botched potion had sent him into a bizarre, semi-conscious stupor.
He didn't know how long this state had lasted.
Hours. Days. Weeks.
Did it matter?
Eventually, however — slowly, reluctantly — he surfaced.
He was lying on his back.
The ground beneath him was soft — irritatingly so, like something that was decidedly mortal.
Something lay on top of him. Heavy, warm, constricting.
Sounds reached his consciousness: an infuriating, steady beeping; a soft, mechanical whirring; a periodic clicking — strange and entirely unnecessary.
Further away: footsteps. Voices. A dull rumbling.
And then — a touch.
Someone took his hand.
A jolt ran through him.
Physical contact was rarely a good sign.
"Sir, can you hear me?"
The voice was young. Nervous.
And most definitely not that of a divine being.
Oh no, he thought gloomily. Where on earth have they put me this time?
Clearly, he was no longer a house-elf.
And in all likelihood, not a mountain troll either.
A cool breeze brushed across his chest — unpleasant, but harmless.
The pain came only afterwards.
Knuckles.
Hard.
Merciless.
Ground into his sternum with the sensitivity of a bludger.
A stabbing, searing impulse shot through his body, so sudden that he gasped sharply.
What in Merlin's name—?!
If this was a new body, it clearly possessed far too many nerve endings.
He would have loved to demand an explanation out loud — preferably accompanied by a torrent of curses.
If only he could have spoken.
The attempt dissolved into a choked, gagging reflex that caused him further agony.
Something was wedged in his throat. Something foreign. Hard. Uncomfortably intimate.
A shudder ran through him.
Was he back in the Shrieking Shack?
Had he at least bitten off the tip of Nagini's tail?
He groaned.
Of course not.
He'd never been that lucky.
His left eyelid was forced open. A blinding white light seared into his pupil, as sharp as a Lumos Maxima, cast by someone with no regard whatsoever for human dignity.
What a barbarian...
What soulless, empathy-bereft Dark Wizard dared to torture him in such a manner?
The light faded away. A blessing.
Only for the procedure to be repeated on his right eye.
Of course.
No wand within reach to defend himself. No curse, no cutting remark, not even a weary roll of the eyes.
He was at the mercy — or rather, the incompetence — of a stranger.
A state he detested profoundly.
"Sir, please squeeze my hand if you can hear me."
Oh, he could hear her.
And he would have loved to crush that hand. With relish.
But his body refused to obey.
The fingers clasping his were warm, soft, unmistakably human — and at that moment, the only available outlet for his simmering rage.
He concentrated every ounce of his remaining willpower onto his fingers.
A tiny impulse. Little more than a pathetic twitch.
If he couldn't strangle her, a squeeze would have to do.
The hand withdrew from him — cowardly, he thought — and landed on his shoulder instead.
A pat.
A. Pat.
He felt a surge of indignation so profound that, in a healthy body, it would have culminated in an immediate attempt at murder.
"Can you open your eyes, sir?"
Of course he could.
What an utterly idiotic question.
He didn't want to.
On principle, he refused.
Out of the deepest conviction, he resisted.
And yet he did it — grudgingly, with the inner resolve of a man who knows full well that he will later curse this moment in the most meticulous, agonising detail.
His optic nerves were just as uncooperative as the rest of his body.
As a deliberate act of defiance, they brought the incoming information into focus only reluctantly — passing it on to his brain as though they themselves dreaded the sheer absurdity of it all.
The light source turned out to be a fluorescent lamp directly above his head.
Glaring. Merciless.
Lighting that had clearly been selected by someone with absolutely no sense of aesthetics or humanity.
The room itself lay in semi-darkness.
Shadows, muted contours, and barely a stir.
It was obviously night-time.
Of course.
Eternity possessed a perverse knack for sending him back whenever the world was least ready for him.
He was lying in a bed.
Plastic tubes protruded from his body — a sight that deeply offended his sensibilities.
A thicker tube led into his mouth, answering the question of his enforced silence in the most disagreeable manner possible.
His hands, however...
He lifted them slightly, as far as the array of tubes would allow.
He remembered those fingers. The sharp, familiar contours of the knuckles.
Not the small, delicate fingers of that ridiculous trainee teacher into whose body divine providence had once banished him.
Nor the grotesquely overlong appendages of a house-elf.
No.
These hands were his hands.
At last, once more.
But then his gaze fell on what was covering his body.
A light blue, short-sleeved gown.
Who, he asked himself with rapidly mounting indignation, had dared to dress him in this... this... monstrosity?
He had been dead.
He had sacrificed himself.
He had survived eternity.
And now this.
And what on earth was this strange room?
Machines flickered all around him, their purpose entirely beyond his comprehension — and they likely wouldn't have made any sense even if his mind had been more alert.
A pungent stench of alcohol hung in the air.
His eyes finally focused on the figure standing by his bed.
Short, dark hair.
Large eyes.
Female.
Age hard to determine — somewhere between twenty and thirty.
And the outfit...
Pathetic.
A navy blue tunic with white stripes tracing the sleeves and collar.
A sailor girl?
He blinked.
Had the Guardians of Eternity seriously conscripted him into the Royal Navy?
A name badge was pinned to her chest.
Senior Staff Nurse Emilia M. Durnin.
The title meant absolutely nothing to him, but the smugness with which it was emblazoned across the plastic was impossible to miss.
Next to it was a printed emblem: Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust.
Words that read as though someone had attempted to cross a tedious government agency with an expletive.
Two pens were neatly tucked into her breast pocket — a sight that involuntarily reminded him of over-eager Year One students.
A small fob watch was pinned to her lapel, glimmering dully in the light of the fluorescent lamp. And a strange plastic card dangled from the hem of her tunic.
Sailor Durnin pulled a pen from her breast pocket and produced — in a completely unspectacular manner — a clipboard.
Then, she gently pressed the pen into his right hand. That very hand, which was tethered by a transparent tube and secured with strips of white medical tape...
"Sir, you cannot speak at the moment," she explained in a voice that was far too friendly for the situation. "You are still on a ventilator. You are in Salisbury District Hospital. You've been in an accident. Unfortunately, you were unconscious when you were admitted, and you had no identification on you."
He glared at her.
Or at least, he attempted to.
He already had a sinking feeling: this wasn't a reincarnation; it was another test. The ultimate punishment.
Holding the pen felt strange.
Not because of the writing implement itself — but because of that absurd tube, which dug uncomfortably into his flesh with every movement.
"Could you please write down your name, and the name and number of someone we can contact?"
His name.
Contact someone.
He was still attempting to process the words she had hurled at him.
Accident.
Hospital.
Salisbury.
Divine Providence now appeared to be operating entirely within the realm of unadulterated sadism.
At last, he moved the pen across the paper.
Slowly. Awkwardly. But with absolute purpose.
"I'll fetch the doctor," Sailor Durnin announced.
She gently took the pen and clipboard from his trembling grasp, her gaze lingering for a fraction of a second on the note he had left behind, before she departed the room with quick, quiet steps.
There, scrawled in a spidery, angular, and decidedly archaic hand, were the words:
Snape, Severus. Nobody.
