Chapter Text
He wakes up in a dark room with a strangely familiar man leaning over him. He feels like he was sleeping for a long long time, mind fuzzy and disoriented. The strange man gently props him and helps him sit up: “Slowly Sev, so you won’t get dizzy.” Severus nods and leans into him. Once he feels little bit more steady, he looks around. He recognizes this place from his nightmares, the Shrieking Shack, the place where he almost died.
He panics a little bit, expecting Lupin to jump at him but the werewolf is not there. Instead there are 2 boys, both around his age. Is it.. Potter? He looks differently, the usual sneer off of his face. The other one is..”Lucius!” he recognizes his friend, even if his hair look little bit different. “Lucius, what happened?” Luc looks shocked and starts to shake his head, his mouth opening and closing, but no sound coming out. He looks helplessly on the man still supporting Sev’s back, eyes imploring.
“He is not Lucius and that is not Potter you see.” the man gently combs his hair with his fingers, they are full of tangles and wet with something. That is when Severus notices he is lying in a puddle of blood. He tries to jump up, horrified, but his legs won’t hold him and he almost collapses back to the ground. Only quick reflexes of the unknown man save him from falling. He scoops him up into his arms and looks around.
“There is a bed in the next room” the not-Potter says. The man nods and takes Sev there. Once he is lying on the bed, his back supported by all the pillows they could find, the man sits next to him. “Will you allow me to clean you up a little? I promise we will explain all we can right after.” Severus thinks for a second, but gives him his consent at the end, for some unknown reason he trusts the man even if he’d never seen him before and he really wants to get the blood off as soon as possible.
“Who are you? Do I know you?” he asks, studying the man carefully. His eyes flicker to the boys awkwardly standing in the doorway as far from each other as possible. The man finishes the cleaning spells first and transfigures an old book into a hairbrush and starts combing the younger man’s hair. It takes a while, Sev’s hair are long and thick, cascading down his back almost to his waist. No one speaks, but the older man ignores the growing tension and focuses on the task at hand. Only when his hair are tangle free he speaks:
“The blond boy you see in the doorway is not Lucius Malfoy, it is Draco, Lucius’ son. I am the Lucius you know.” Startled black eyes meet sad grey ones. Severus studies the man who claims to be his friend and the boy standing in the doorway. Now that his mind is little bit clearer he can see the differences between them. The younger’s eyes are of different color, more icy blue than grey, his nose is… softer somehow and he seems little bit shorter than his Lucius, who is as tall as he is. How is that possible? What happened?
He could hear blood passing through his ears - thump, thump, thump - the tempo quickly increasing until he is feeling like his heart will jump out of his chest. Lucius’ face starts to swim in from of his eyes and is oddly shaking. Then he realizes it’s in not Luc who is shaking, trembling actually, it is he himself. Violent shudders are running through his whole body. He can’t speak, can’t breathe or move, he can only feel, feel the overwhelming dread clouding his mind, telling him that something is wrong and he is in danger.
He tries to curl into himself, to lock the feelings inside, but there is something preventing it, something, somebody is holding him immobilized, gently rocking him back and forth and whispering calming words into his ear.
Lucius recognizes the panic attack immediately, as soon as Severus started to breathe more heavily he knew what will come. He remembers them from their school days, how many times did he had to bring him down from one? Every time those bloody Marauders did something especially vicious or when the end of a school year came by and Sev was forced to return to his Father’s house. So he knows what to do, how to stop him from hurting himself, what words to use to calm him down…
He pulls the boy into his chest, forcing him to lay his head on Luc’s chest like so many times before. “Shhh, focus on my breathing, listen to it and follow the rhythm. In and out, in and out. Slowly, as slow as you can. In and out, in and out.” It takes a while, but gradually the feeling of dread diminishes and Sev is able to match his breathing to Lucius. This reaction, the way how he calmed him down convinced him that Lucius is truly who he says he is. No other than he and Lily knew how to bring him down when he panicked.
Severus is scared and overwhelmed, his mind going in circles. The emotional strain is eventually too much and he starts sobbing. He is sobbing and clutching Lucius’ robes as firmly as he can, Lucius is his lifeline, his only connection in the world he knew, world that made sense.