The nightmare plagued Harry's sleep again, the way it had for months.

It was never quite the same, but it always followed a familiar theme.

He was always somewhere familiar: His flat, the Quidditch pitch, Flourish & Blotts, places he frequented.

Tonight, the nightmare placed Harry in Diagon Alley, eating an ice cream—probably at Fortescue's.

He had been enjoying the mixture of strawberry and peanut butter, slurping up a chunk of strawberry, still blissfully ignorant to what awaited him; just a lovely dream about ice cream.

But it was there, unnoticed, lurking in the shadows. That creature, waiting to pounce. Harry turned toward what felt warm and radiant, a bit like mid-day sun, only to find himself enveloped in darkness instead.

The cone fell from his hand, ice cream splattering onto the now shadowed pavement, some splashing up to stain his jeans.

The man is there again, standing in front of Harry as he always was when the nightmare began.

He was silent, too silent.

Harry wished he could scream, wished he could hurl insults, shout, speak, move, just be able to do something, anything.

Anything, he thought, would be preferable to the silence.

The bite wound on the man was still fresh, it's always fresh. It never seemed to matter, in the dream, how many days or weeks had passed since that night, it was always fresh.

Blood poured from it the wound, as it usually did, running thickly to the ground, mingling with the dropped ice cream. The pool of both liquids mixed at their feet, growing larger by the second ; by now, Harry thought he would have been used to it, yet it kept him trapped in a fascinated horror every time, despite knowing it wasn't truly real.

The man's skin was pale, deathly so, unnatural, and only getting worse as the wound bled out; the eyes dark, unwavering, accusing.

"…Harry…" No words were spoken, no sound came from the man's slack, darkened mouth, yet they echoed in the choking darkness. The silence had been preferable.

Harry began to tremble, his entire body shaking with each reverberation of his name. He wanted to wake up, he wanted to escape, he knew this wasn't real, yet he couldn't tear himself away. A strangled sob escaped his lips; the black gaze never faltered, and held him in rapt, horrible fascination.

"Please—please, what do you want? I can't save you, I can't bring you back! Please—let me be—leave me alone—oh God." Harry's knees buckled then, and he sank to the ground, his jeans becoming soaked in melted cream, fruit, and blood. He covered his ears first with his hands then with his forearms, trying to escape the repeating of his name, curling like a dying spider; the voice-Snape's voice-seemed to reverberate inside his head, not from any external source.

All the while the spectre of Severus Snape continued to look down on him, unblinking, unmoving, mouth limply opened: The living corpse of Severus Snape.

Harry jerked awake, bolting upright and clutching his blankets to him. He panted hard, unable to catch his breath for the moment, chest heaving up and down, more gasping for air than breathing.

He'd been there again, in the nightmare.

Snape.

It always felt so real, so—suffocating.

Harry shuddered and curled in on himself with a quiet, shaky groan, burying his face against the blankets that rested on his lap.

He remained in that position for some time, trying to calm himself or at least regain control of his breathing.

Finally, Harry's breathing had slowed to something resembling a normal pace, and the last pieces of the nightmare began to fall away to the back of his mind, he lifted his head.

A cold, creeping feeling remained and it was then that Harry realised that he was soaking wet, as were his sheets, some of the blankets, and his pillow. Harry scowled, and angrily threw the blankets off as he pushed himself out of bed to remove the clammy feeling fitted sheet. He jerked the bottom sheets off ungracefully and roughly and threw them on the floor; at least if he felt angry—even if it was just at the bedsheets—he didn't feel quite so frightened.

Harry did, however, feel disgusted with himself, even the anger couldn't entirely blot that out. His mind had not been a stable place since he was about fourteen of course, but there had been good reason for that: His connection to the late Voldemort.

Now Voldemort was gone, but true to the type of person he had been in life, even in death, he left considerable damage in his wake.

Harry didn't understand the how or why of it, he just knew that being wrenched free of the connection he and Voldemort had unwittingly (and unwillingly) shared did not bring the relief or closure he had assumed would come. He often wondered if the damage done had been so great that he might never feel as though his mind were whole—or even fully his.

Harry sighed, and his shoulders slumped as he shuffled over to the bedroom window to have a look outside. He could see the sun slowly rising over London proper, pale pink and orange.

He guessed it had to be about half six; not the worst time it could have been, but certainly earlier than Harry had planned on waking up on a Saturday.

There was no point in going back to bed now.

He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, and even if he could, Teddy would be waking up in a couple of hours.

Harry left the sheets on the floor, wanting nothing to do with them for the moment. He'd wash them later, when he'd had ample time to calm himself and not have to worry about being upset again by the reminder of how his day began.

Stepping away from the window, Harry crossed the room and opened up a drawer in his wardrobe, and pulled out a grey Irish knit sweater.

He wrestled it over his head, pulling it down snug to block out the October chill. He then grabbed a pair of socks and yanked them on his feet, padding over to the door and opening, allowing more light to stream in.

He and Teddy lived in a cozy two room flat on the edge of London for some months now. Harry could have easily afforded a nicer place, and he planned eventually to get one but, just for now, he wanted this.
This little piece of normalcy, of adulthood. His large amount of wealth could sit in Gringotts for now, to be used when necessary or needed.

The other bedroom was just opposite Harry's, and the door was open a crack. Harry had recently forced himself to move Teddy into his own room, knowing it was better for the toddler, especially considering the increasing frequency of Harry's own nightmares.

Harry still couldn't help feeling a bit guilty about it though, so he always kept the door cracked just open.

He carefully and quietly pushed the door open just wide enough to peek in and check on his godson.

Teddy was still fast asleep on his cot; his hair was blue on top, with red and yellow on the bottom. The child could already control his looks to a certain extent when he was awake, but when he was asleep, his appearance would change wildly, and without any rhyme or reason to it. Harry smiled softly as Teddy's hair faded to a different set of colours again, pulling the door closed once more.

It was true, he could no longer find peace in his dreams, but he could still find it in small ways the waking world, and that was enough-for the moment-to make him feel better.