rm | HP fanfic snippet

This is from the Decensus universe, but won't be used in the story anywhere, because it's so goddamn tonally wrong. But the cable company put me in a mood, so I wrote it.

There are all sorts of things Severus admits only to himself, and even that he finds unpleasant and humiliating. He acquiesces to the truth of them because rigor demands it, because he would lose even more of himself were he to pretend they weren't true.

He loves the way Narcissa smells, especially when she forgets her perfume. Then it's just a little bit pornographic that he notices what will only belong to Lucius soon. Although he wonders how thoroughly a man can possess something of which he is mostly unaware.

Lucius' weight on him is a second vice, cherished most when it is without intent, when it is lazy and even slovenly. Then it manages to do what all the blankets his mother heaped on his bed when he was small could not – define and measure and wall off the length of his limbs and the terrible, constant thudding of his heart. It is easier to sleep like that, he finds; under dead weight there is less fear of loss.

Fear of loss, he knows, implies possessions. Sometimes, when he is certain he is alone he writes a list of his
Intellect.
Talent and fine fingers.
Skills.
A trade.
A tolerable balance of money and judgment.
The need of no one.
Books.
Desire.

And burns it. For safety he says, and even whispers as it goes.