For: QL Round 7

Position: Captain

Prompt: Nagini

Note: Lizy is the fabbest person to ever exist and I love her so much for publishing for me and everyone should adore her because she's fab.

My Lord. My Lord. Have you been sleeping? The boy has. Oh, I know the boy has. I have a secret, my Lord; I am the secret. It is me, my Lord, do you understand?

The boy, the boy, the boy, my Lord! When he sleeps - he has been sleeping, oh, yes, such frightful, fitful sleep - when he sleeps, my Lord… I can see him.

I can feel him.

He is there, my Lord. On the edge of my mind, watching through my eyes like a predator, like an animal. Oh, my Lord, he could be a vicious boy if they let him. I can tell. I know vicious.

Oh, my Lord, my Lord. I have felt him, the way you have felt so many men; his mind, his soul. I have touched his very core; he has touched mine, was part of it, at least for a moment. He helped me murder the red man, the father, the Weasley. He sunk teeth in just as I did, I swear it, my Lord.

Oh, my Lord, but I have another secret: the boy, the boy is just like you. But only sometimes. Only sometimes.

x

Harry wakes suddenly, sweating. The early morning light shines through the dark curtains, leaving a soft blue glow about the room. The air is stale and too warm - it's the middle of summer, Harry remembers, and, with a jolt, his twenty-eighth birthday.

He sits up in bed carefully so as not to disturb his wife, who snores peacefully next to him, the duvet kicked off her warm body, red hair fanned out like a sunset on the pillow. With a fumbling hand, he finds his glasses on the nightstand. He slips them on and everything becomes clearer, more real. Now that his vision has solidified, now that the world is one hundred percent there again, it is easy to remember that it was just a nightmare. He shivers despite himself.

He laughs a humourless chuckle as his heartbeat begins to slow its rapid beating. He shakes his head, ruffling his unruly hair, stuck to his forehead with sweat.

The alarm clock on the nightstand reads 4:44am. Knowing he won't get back to sleep now, Harry drags himself from the bed and shuffles towards the kitchen in search of a nice, hot cup of tea.

Ginny stirs in his absence. The kitchen clock ticks loudly, an insistent reminder of the late (early) hour.

It has been ten years. Ten years. Oh, he knows by now that this will never leave him. The scars from the war are many - everyone has them, lasting injuries and disfigurements - but Harry's run much deeper than that. Deeper, he suspects, than anyone could possibly understand. Nobody knows of a scarred soul, or how to fix it.

He sighs as the kettle boils. Neville killed the snake, he reminds himself. The snake is dead.

x

She is slipping along the floor silent as the night. It's dark and dusty under the bed but she can smell him - oh, my Lord, my Lord, he is so close, so close - but she cannot kill him, she knows that much. She can bite, maybe, just one quick snap and then flesh splitting under her teeth and blood seeping and bone crunching and she could tear it away, tear him apart, she could -

x

There is a baby crying. Harry jumps at the sound, confused. The baby is wailing, and when Harry opens his eyes to look for the sound, he sees a familiar brown-eyed face contorted into a scream. It's Lily, he realises. It's Lily, it's his daughter, and he is twenty-eight and the war is over and she is crying because she needs him.

He picks her up from her cot and cuddles her close. "There, there," he murmurs, but her wails still sound.

Perhaps, he thinks fleetingly, she felt it too. The spy in the shadows, the danger beneath the furniture. Perhaps she, too, can sense the snake.

But it has been ten years, and Lily is only six months old, and the snake is very, very dead. He shakes his head, and then begins to hum. Some useless jingle from an ad on the wireless - something about a new floo powder - but Lily seems to like it. Her cries falter, and then stop completely as she stares curiously up at this great big humming thing. Harry smiles.

Memories of his bad dream already fading, he begins to sing - "Don't work yourself into a tizzy; UltraFloo won't make you dizzy!" - and Lily gurgles up at him, her bright eyes alert, her mouth trying and failing to sound just like daddy. He laughs, and then sings, and decides it's best not to sleep for another while. Not while his Lily needs him.

x

Soft bed, soft bed, she thinks. Softer than flesh, but not nearly as sweet. She runs up the length of it like a slow trickle, the boy lying prone beside her. She can feel the heat of him, warm blooded hero boy, fire for the pitchforks held up against her Lord. Her tongue dances in the air as she slithers, and she can smell the sweat and the sweet lifeblood pulsing through his veins - my Lord, please, please - but she mustn't. Not yet.

Instead, she glides flush against his calf, and he almost burns (burning morality and petulance and foolishness dubbed bravery, oh silly boy) but she carries on regardless. She snakes in between his legs at the knee, coils herself around him bit by bit. She could crush him. She could just - just tighten and squeeze and - my Lord, he would die screaming, he would - but no. No.

But she squeezes anyway, just slightly, just to see him squirm - and, oh, he does. Such a pretty panic. Just a - a twitch and then - oh, he realises now, he's waking, he's - he's trying to kick and break free and she can't help but tighten with every move he makes, even as she keeps slithering up his torso. His eyes are wide and panicked and he's trying to scream, she can tell, but his lungs won't work. They're stuttering beneath her, shuddering uselessly beneath his ribcage, and she is ready to strike, ready to pounce, ready to kill -

x

"Harry!"

His eyes fly open. Ginny is sitting up in bed, her hair thrown up in a hurried bun. She looks pale, terrified, eyes wide and worried (and he's seen that expression before that exact one just like that just like when - ).

"Harry, shhh, come here," she soothes, and, in response, Harry's mind stops racing. His body falls towards her instinctively, his head dropping into the side of her neck. "It's over, Harry, you know this. He's gone. It's okay."

Her voice is as dim as the light, a quiet hum of reassurance. He can feel her fingers trailing up and down his back, and how her hands are shaking just a bit. She's terrified. And no, it's not like before, not like the war; Harry is scaring her this time. Guilt crashes in his stomach in nauseating waves.

"I didn't mean it, Gin," he croaks. "It was just a nightmare. Sorry I scared you."

"Don't worry about me, you idiot," she breathes. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," he says, wondering if he means it.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," he says. Then: "Yes."

Ginny says nothing, waiting for Harry to elaborate. She knows he'll say it in his own time.

"It's stupid. I'm being stupid," he moans, pushing his face against her even more. His words become muffled. "I keep dreaming about the fucking snake."

Ginny is quiet for a moment. "The basilisk?" she asks weakly. Her hands have slowed their motions on Harry's back. It suddenly hits him what Ginny went through, way back when. How haunted she was by her own shadow, by the serpent always lurking in the background. He sits bolt right up. "No, no, Gin, I didn't - Vokdemort's snake, Nagini, she keeps - not the other one, that was - "

"Merlin, Harry, calm down," Ginny says, covering his hand with hers. "I don't mind being reminded of it. It's over now. Don't panic." She smiles. "They're both dead anyway. The basilisk and Nagini. We were there, remember?"

Harry exhales. He doesn't know what's wrong with him. His bones feel jittery, like they're shivering inside him. He is in a constant panic, his chest is tight, and Ginny is so sweet and beautiful and they have a family and the war is all over now, it's over, all over. "Sometimes when I wake up," he tries, swallowing painfully. "Sometimes I forget. You know?"

"Yeah," she sighs, nodding. Her lips are pulled into the kind of soft smile that Harry fell in love with years ago. "But then you get to remember all over again."

He laughs. She's right: he remembers it all again, every morning. Remembers the thud of Tom Riddle's body and Ron and Hermione's wedding and the taste of Ginny's skin and holding James for the first time and everything else. Everything.

"I love you," he says quietly. He turns his hand over so that their fingers lace together.

"I know," she beams, and leans forward to capture him in a kiss. "Now go back to sleep - and no more nightmares."

"No more nightmares," he repeats, and pulls her down and holds her close.