“I really want to believe it’s impossible
I really want to believe it’s all a dream
But I just can’t seem to wake up
I just can’t seem to turn on a light
One step off the edge
And the world will seem all right.”
~London After Midnight, Shatter

     “I want to do something different today,” explained Snape. “If I may be so bold.”
     “What do you want to do, Sir?” Lola asked, nervously. “A different technique?”
     Snape put his wand away. “Yes, Miss Banini, exactly.” He stepped to his desk and picked up a vial of an iridescent blue mixture. “I wish to go into your mind while you slumber.” He handed her the potion. “This will help you sleep.”
     Lola didn’t take the vial at first. “What are you going to do?”
     “Nothing to harm you. I wish to... look around.”      “But...” Lola felt an icy grip around her stomach.
     “I may be able to help discover who you were, where you came from...” he explained. Lola knew he wanted to find someone he knew, too. “Please,” he offered the drink to her again. “for both of us?”
     Somewhere in the seconds that followed his last attempt to pass her the drink, the far away look in his eyes grew very close and very warm, and Lola took the vial and held it, letting the condensation on the outside absorb into her palms. She suddenly trusted that her professor knew what he was doing. Lola knew something once. And he wants to know what that was. Simple as that. And maybe, she thought, it would help her find herself, like he said.
     So she jerked her head back and slammed the potion all at once. It was a bittersweet sensation running down her throat and she felt tranquility settling in her head. “Thiss drug workss faasst,” she slurred as she fell backward into Snape’s arms.
     He carried the sleeping girl to the sofa he had in the corner of his office, set her down gently, and retrieved his wand from his cloak pocket. One, two, three...

~~~
     When Severus arrived inside Lola’s mind, he was someplace different. Different from where he normally found himself to be when entering someone’s mind. This place reminded him of the Dark Forest. He expected this was part of her Dream World.
     “Hi,” he heard a little girl say. He looked down at a very small child with grey hair standing at his feet. In fact, he noticed, everything here looked dingy and grey, as if covered in dust. “You shouldn’t be here. This is a sacred place. Even I don’t come here. Go away.”
     At that moment, he noticed that the skin had disappeared from his hands. These were the hands of Death. He touched his face and felt nothing, but heard bone tapping bone and discovered that all of his flesh was gone. His robes hung off his shoulder bones and strands of hair were still attached to his skull. “What’s happened to me?” he asked, worried. “What’s going on?”
     “You’re dead,” the little girl said, matter-of-factly. “You cannot exist here.”
     “But I can still speak ,” Severus pointed out. “And move around.”
     “Lola is the only psychic entity here. By allowing you access to her mind, she is keeping you barely alive. Like a phantom. But your body is dead in this place.”
     “Who are you?” he asked, finally.
     “I am what’s left of Lola’s childhood. Before things got real bad.” She circled around Severus for a few seconds, and then sat down on a tree branch, kicking her feet back and forth, as small children often do while seated. “I am her deepest manifestation of consciousness that you can see.”
     “Is this a dream?”
     “The answer to that is both yes, and no.” Little Lola took a deep breath. “Some dreams are real, and therefore, only memories returning in one’s sleep. Some dreams are illusion, and then there are the few dreams that are both. Lola is dreaming us right now, but it is in the vain of her memories. You wish to know things about her. We are her. This is your chance to ask us almost anything.”
     “Us?”
     “There’s me, and then there’s Lola’s Ophelia.” Little Lola pointed into the distance. There, sitting upon a dead tree was an older manifestation of Lola’s consciousness. Her face was shrouded in dark, disastrous hair, and her body was cut up and bleeding. She sat facing away from Severus and Little Lola. She appeared so far away, yet her dark, raspy whisper was loud and clear.
     “I am Lola who has escaped,” she said. “I reflect that which goes deeper than you can ever imagine. The image of kindness and joy she felt before things turned sour... But as I absorb more hurt and suffering, I change.”
     Snape had never felt so intimidated and nervous around anyone more than half his age. “How did you... become so...” were the only words able to escape his lips at that moment.
     “Tainted?” she guessed he was trying to say, “Cruelty and pain have changed me. My joy... is dead.” A single tear fell from the mess of hair onto the ground. “Now leave this place. Your family is not here.” And with that, the growing darkness of the forest swallowed her whole.
     “But I see her smile all the time,” he said quietly. “Her joy must not be completely dead.” How did she know I was looking for my family? he asked to himself.
     “Smiling,” started Little Lola. “is just a symptom of happiness and can be faked. You should never assume that everyone who smiles is happy.”
     Severus had detected a feeling at his fingertips. He looked down to see his robes rubbing against his hand. His flesh had returned. “This is both reality and illusion, this dream. So will she remember all of this when she wakes up?”
     “Oh no...” Little Lola explained. “This stuff’s so deep down, it’ll take years for her to work through.”
     Severus inclined his head, and as he walked away, he thought of Lola. And Little Lola. And Lola’s Ophelia. And how he was going to get out of this place. And his family. “You think too much,” said the little girl. “Let’s play.” And then he was back in his office.
     He looked at Lola resting peacefully on his sofa, put his cloak over her, and left her to slumber there for the evening.
~~~
     After his normal routine of grading papers, having supper, and tossing in some active spite toward Harry Potter, he went to bed.
     It was the first good night’s sleep he’d gotten in ages. Babies don’t sleep this well.
     He awoke the next morning, went about a basic morning routine and then slipped into his office while he was still in a mild euphoric stage left from his wondrous, yet dreamless slumber. He had almost forgotten that he left Lola on his sofa. When he checked to see how she was doing, she was gone, and his cloak was folded neatly at one end of the couch. He expected Lola had woken up and went to her own quarters.
~~~

On to Chapter 5