Chapter Text
Sybill Trelawney predicted doom for Harry Potter.
Harry wanted to think it was the same doom she’d been predicting since the beginning - the whiff of Voldemort that danced over his skin like a thick sheen of oil. The smell of death that couldn’t be washed from his hair. The despair and hopelessness that had somehow wormed its way bone-deep into his body. He was sixteen and he just wanted to kill Voldemort before Voldemort killed him. He wanted to protect his friends from the Death Eaters. He wanted to leave the world behind him in something resembling the kind of order and safety that he dreamed was possible. He expected to die.
When Trelawney sought him out to say that word, doom, his lips had given a parody of a smile. She didn’t need the tea leaves or the cards or anything else to see the doom in his destiny. It was fairly obvious. He had smiled, because he had wanted to ask her, Can you narrow the doom down for me? Who will die this year? What else could it be? Torture? Pain? Misery? Take your pick.
And so began his sixth year at Hogwarts.
Voldemort was in hiding. Harry hadn’t felt more than a twinge in his scar through the summer, but Voldemort’s minions were out in broad daylight, and no one knew quite what to make of it. Three witches had been killed while shopping in Diagon Alley. Three days later, a wizard family living on the outskirts of Muggle London had woken up to find the remains of a disembowelled Hungarian Horntail strewn about their front lawn - and most of the neighbourhood. A week later, a wizard in blood red robes was seen trespassing in St. Mungo’s. He apparated away before anyone could catch him, but the staff found seven smothered patients, all with family connections to aurors. At the same time, in three separate places, Death Eaters were seen moving about in groups, and the small towns they were spotted in were reported to have been burnt to cinders in the following weeks.
Hogwarts and the rest of the British wizarding world were placed on high alert. Businesses along Diagon Alley were closed as the owners moved on to less dangerous locations. The wizarding world bled over into the Muggles’ world as Aurors patrolled the whole of the country, and the Muggles’ news ran over with fear. Uncertainty ruled.
At Hogwarts, no one could be found to fill the empty Defence Against the Dark Arts position. In the new uncertainty, the teaching position seemed worse than cursed. Hogwarts had too great a connection to Voldemort, and yet, despite the wizarding world being put on standstill, Hogwarts continued. Defence lessons were closed, but each professor was urged to volunteer time in the now-official extracurricular DA lessons, and students were equally urged to take part. Life was encouraged to continue normally within the walls of Hogwarts, and, for the most part, the students were students. No defence professor meant no lessons and no homework, and that was fine by them. Very few seemed to have any clue that the world outside their safe school was as frozen in terror as it had been seventeen years ago.
Harry knew. And he knew it was his fault. He knew the world was short of good fighters because of mistakes he’d made. He knew he wasn’t nearly strong enough to be the saviour the world expected him to be. He knew that nobody was safe and he knew trouble was coming. He didn’t need Trelawney to tell him that, and he didn’t need defence lessons to encourage him to learn.
He made the choice to change all by himself.
They wanted him to be captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team again that year, but he turned them down. Everyone came to try and talk him into it… his friends, his team mates, Professor McGonagall, Madam Hooch. He responded by dropping out of the team completely.
There was a certain part of him that regretted it, but he knew he didn’t have time for it anymore. It wasn’t productive. It had been fun, but Quidditch wasn’t going to help him defeat Voldemort. It would only take up his time. He had to be prepared. He didn’t understand why everyone didn’t see that. Surely at least Hermione could appreciate his newfound devotion to education. She had always insisted he take it more seriously. Well, now he was. He was taking it very seriously.
And if the price was a little unhappiness, then so be it. A person could live with unhappiness. He knew that well enough.
He had never liked the dungeons. They were cold and damp and they smelled. The sun was a stranger there. The air was thick and stale. And, of course, they were home to Potions and their Master.
Professor Severus Snape. Who hated Harry and didn’t hide it. Who had hated Sirius Black and hadn’t hid it. Who had the mark of the Death Eaters on his arm and hid that under layers of black clothing. Who looked as dark and greasy as his reputation. Severus Snape, the only one who had never put The Boy Who Lived on a pedestal. The only one who didn’t put stock in the belief that Harry Potter had a destiny greater than others.
The only one Harry felt comfortable around anymore.
Even in his present mindset, he could see the irony of it.
He hesitated at the door for only a moment and then knocked firmly.
“Come in or go away!” Came the growl from within, so he pushed open the heavy door and walked in. Snape didn’t glance upward from the papers on his desk but said, “Mister Potter. To what do I owe this presumptuous visit?”
At one time, Harry might have asked how Snape had known it was him, or might have made a quip about how Snape should be in Divinations instead, but the part of him that would have asked that question, even considered that question, had been burned away over the summer. Instead, he walked over to Snape’s desk and got to the point.
“I need your help, Professor.”
The quill stopped and hovered over the half-marked essay. A drop of ink quivered off the end and fell, splattering against the paper. Snape cursed under his breath and looked up, his annoyance plain in his sharp brows and dark eyes.
“You’ve made me spoil the paper, Potter. Five points from Gryffindor.”
Harry continued as if there had been no interruption. “People died because I wasn’t ready last Spring. I was naïve and stupid and unprepared.”
Snape’s mouth dropped open before curling into a scowl. “You’ll get no argument from me.”
Harry nodded. “I thought I had the luxury to be angry with you, Professor, to dislike you, but I don’t. You have knowledge I need in order to face the Death Eaters and, when the time comes again, to face Voldemort. I have come to ask you if you would be willing to teach me again. I promise it won’t be a waste of your time. I fully intend to take you and your lessons seriously.”
Snape’s mouth worked soundlessly. A year ago, Harry would have had to bite down an explosion of laughter until he’d joined his friends back in the Gryffindor tower, but it was a new year and so had new rules to live by. And in this new year, Snape was the new untouchable. His word was Harry’s new law.
“I can give you time to consider it, if you prefer,” he continued and watched Snape try to form a sentence. “Let me know your decision. I’d like to get started as soon as possible. Thanks for your time, Professor.”
He closed the door on his way out.
“I’m concerned about Mr. Potter, Albus…”
“Headmaster! Have you spoken to… oh, Professor Snape…” Hermione froze in her tracks and paled.
“Hermione,” Ron’s voice hissed from the hallway outside Dumbledore’s office. “You can’t just go… oh. Um. Hello Professor. Headmaster. Um. How’re… things?”
Dumbledore smiled at them over his half-moon lenses. “In answer to all your questions, I have not spoken to Harry recently, I am also concerned about him, and, generally, things have been rather well, thank you, although if you are referring specifically to Harry, things have been rather not well at all.” He eyed all three of them. “I would be interested to hear your sides of the story. If you wouldn’t mind, Severus, I would like to have Harry’s friends speak first.”
Ron’s eyes had gone blank in panic, but Hermione straightened and cleared her throat, avoiding Snape’s gaze. “Harry’s been off. He rarely speaks with us, or with anyone else for that matter. He’s quit Quidditch, he hasn’t joined our DA meetings at all, and he’s hardly eating in the Great Hall anymore, or even with people. I don’t actually know where he goes all the time, sir. Whenever we try to talk to him-”
“He tells us everything will be fine and that he’s doing it for us,” Ron said softly, eyes still wide. Snape turned his head to gaze at him along the length of his nose and Ron swallowed painfully around the lump in his throat. “He tells us… that… He gave us…”
In the corner, the phoenix Fawkes made a sympathetic noise. Hermione reached over and squeezed Ron’s hand. She looked up. “He gave us a sealed envelope. He told us to open it after it’s over. After he’s gone.” She looked over at Ron again, but his head was bowed, his shoulders slumped. “He’s been giving them to everyone.”
Dumbledore pulled out a white envelope from a drawer of his desk and placed it on the tabletop. As he touched his fingertip to the red wax seal, it sent off harmless red sparks. “This arrived this afternoon. By care of Hedwig.” He flipped it over. On the white paper was Dumbledore’s name, written in silver ink in Harry’s hand. “I could break the seal quite easily, actually. Harry has not put a great deal of effort into the spell, perhaps intending it to be a formality rather than anything more serious. While I could break the seal, I will not. Not without Harry’s permission. How each of you handle your letters is a choice you will have to make for yourselves.” Dumbledore turned his attention from one person to the next, and paused on Snape until the professor’s shoulders moved uncomfortably.
“I have not received an envelope, so that is not a choice I will need to make.” His lips twisted into a smile.“Mr. Potter has told me quite plainly what he thinks of me. I don’t believe a letter would be at all necessary.”
Dumbledore eyed him levelly. “Tell us what you and Harry have been up to, Severus.”
Ron and Hermione’s heads snapped up.
Snape tasted bitterness on his tongue. “Mr. Potter came to ask me to continue our Occlumency lessons from last year. He also asked for surplus Defence lessons, private lessons, to prepare him for the inevitable. I agreed – after some consideration.”
“Since when?” Ron demanded.
Snape glared at him. “Since the beginning of the year, Mr. Weasley. If it is any of your concern.”
“I believe it is his concern, Severus. It is all of our concerns. Harry is in a vulnerable position right now. The death of his godfather has shaken him. We are his friends and his teachers. It is our job to protect him. Yes, even from himself.”
“I know, Headmaster,” Snape replied with some hesitancy. “That has been my... intention.”
Dumbledore’s lips twitched into a small, shrewd smile. “I’m aware. And I appreciate your efforts. I’ll ask you to continue. However,” he turned his attention to Ron and Hermione, “I would ask you not to keep this struggle to yourself from now on, Severus. The four of us are a start, but there are more who have Harry’s best interests at heart. I believe Harry will need us all and more in order to overcome this darkness that has taken hold of him.”
“What can we do?” Ron asked in a small voice. “He barely speaks with me anymore. I rarely see him, and when I do, when I try to talk to him, he’s… He acts like…” he glanced at Snape and quickly looked away. “How… what can I do?”
“We keep an eye on him. We’re there if he needs us,” Hermione told him. “That’s all we can do. And we keep on with the DA meetings, because Harry will need to face He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and the Death Eaters one day, and there’s no way we’re going to let him do it alone.” She glanced up at Snape and hesitated.
He turned his eyes skyward and sighed. “Say it and be done.”
“You made things very difficult for him last year. You made him miserable. Do it again and I will hex you.”
“Will you, now?” He sneered, but she nodded sharply, uncowed, as Ron gaped beside her, his face becoming more pale by the second, making his freckles stand out in sharp contrast to his skin.
“Yes, I will.”
He paused as he considered her. She bore an expression not unlike Bellatrix at her most determined.
“I have no intention to coddle the boy. I am not his father, or his godfather, or his relation of any kind and I have no intention to assume such a role. I acknowledge that my behaviour may have been somewhat splenetic, and that I did not necessarily provide a favourable environment for his education.” He gazed down at Hermione who looked back at him steadily. Ron wasn’t breathing and was growing green around the edges. Dumbledore hid a smile as the portraits lining his office watched the proceedings with visible interest.
“I will do my utmost not to upset his delicate feelings in the future.”
She nodded. The portraits whispered to one another. “Good. See that you do.”
Snape held back a growl of irritation. He looked back at Dumbledore, ignoring the portraits of Gryffindors who grinned and nudged each other. “Will that be all?”
Dumbledore smiled slightly. “I didn’t call this meeting. You came to me. That leaves it up to you to determine if we are finished.”
Snape scowled. “Then that will, in fact, be all.” His robes snapped sharply as he turned and left the room.
Harry had never noticed how loud Hogwarts could be at all hours of the day. When the students were about, it was a chaotic mess of voices and sounds, and he found he couldn’t escape it, not entirely. They surrounded him with their interest and their disinterest, their concern and their indifference. It clung to him like sticky threads of spider silk. He could feel it on his skin, in his hair. He wanted to escape from them.
The dungeons were the safest place. Few students willingly spent time there. He craved the darkness and oblivion of the underground lair. He wanted to blend into the rock and never emerge. He wanted to disappear like smoke in the wind.
Snape seemed to be the only one who understood. His friends… he knew they meant well, but he couldn’t take their concern. Snape was as caustic and disinterested as always. The only allowance he made for Harry was permitting him to work in his study, away from the hubbub and commotion of the upper castle, so long as Harry kept silent and out of the way. It was exactly what Harry needed. Snape’s silent presence wrapped around him like a security blanket, a protection from the forces of good and their need to ‘fix’ him. He didn’t want to be fixed. He just wanted to be left alone. Snape understood this.
He didn’t want to feel anymore. And since he’d decided to do away with his hatred of Snape, he was free to feel miraculously blank.
Of course, as luck had it, the longer he spent in Snape’s presence, the harder that freedom from emotions was to sustain. He no longer felt hatred, that was true, but now he felt something like gratitude. And possibly respect. And other things that were far too complicated for him to consider.
He tried to push all the feelings down, but sometimes… Sometimes he would look up and find Snape watching him and his insides would clench in something like fear. Sometimes, during their Occlumency lessons, Snape would break through and touch his mind, and it felt good to not be alone inside his own head. Sometimes he would be the one to touch Snape’s mind, and the darkness, pain and uncertainty were familiar and comforting in a way. And twice, when he touched Snape’s mind, he found something hidden behind the darkness… He found longing and a surprisingly apprehensive need, and a young boy who had once been far too sensitive for his father’s liking, and a man who was far too sensitive for his own.
They never spoke of any of it, but they developed a silent understanding: an intimacy of shared secrets and embarrassments, of pain and longing.
By the time of the first visit to Hogsmead, as his friends laughed and spent their coins, Harry no longer dreamt of blending into rock and disappearing. He dreamt of disappearing into Snape.
“Harry Potter. Fancy seeing you here... Alone. Wandering about the dungeons, so close to Slytherin House. Lost, no doubt.” Draco snickered to his companions, as he emerged around the corner of a dimly lit hallway. Crabbe and Goyle grinned back in return. “We should help him find his way, wouldn’t you say? Only proper.”
He turned his eyes to look at Draco. The pale-haired boy had become a pale-haired young man, but very little else had changed. Crabbe and Goyle kept to his sides like stone-cut bookends, keeping Draco standing and in place. Behind the three of them, sliding around the corner to stand at Draco’s back, were two seventh years, Eric Prewett-Black and Malcolm Prewett, both distant relations of Draco’s, each with long, wheat-coloured hair, each tall and slim. The two older boys smirked at one another as they noticed Harry, and they crossed their arms over their chests. They looked back at Harry, sharp malice shining from their Slytherin eyes. Harry eyed them back, measuring the threat.
“I’m not lost. I’ve come to see Professor Snape.”
“And why would you do that, I wonder? You’ve been spending far too much time with him lately,” Draco said, but before he could say more, his cousins glanced at one another again and their slow smiles set off warning bells in Harry’s mind.
“If you’re so desperate for a Slytherin’s company, Potter, you needn’t bother the professor.” Their smiles were icy and jagged. The two young men stepped forward, tossing an arm around each of Crabbe and Goyle’s shoulders. “We’d be delighted to be of service to the Famous Harry Potter.”
Goyle frowned and asked, “We would?”
Malcolm chuckled. “Oh, yes, I think we would.” Eric laughed quietly, eyes hungry, watching his cousin with a slow smile. “Or have him be of service to us.”
Harry watched them, saw the confusion in Crabbe and Goyle, saw the cruelty brewing behind the older boys’ smiles. He looked at Draco and met his pale eyes. He didn’t move, didn’t back away, didn’t turn around. He did nothing.
Draco looked back at him, eyes steady, and for a moment, Harry saw something behind his cool gaze, but it was short-lived and quickly replaced with an unapologetic hardness. His hand came forward to grasp Harry’s chin firmly, fingertips bruising into flesh. “Delighted,” he murmured, weakly parroting of the older boy’s tone, and his cousins laughed. They nudged Crabbe and Goyle into motion and the boys moved with the practiced synchronization of unthinking minions.
Heavy hands fell on Harry’s shoulders and pressed. His knees buckled and he fell heavily to the stone ground. His kneecaps jarred against the floor and he bit his tongue, tasting copper down his throat. His eyes glared fire up at Draco, who smirked with cold eyes and stood to one side. He glanced at the cousins, who stood side-by-side, arms and hands brushing as they stared down at Harry. Crabbe and Goyle held him down, pinned his arms behind his back, their vice grips unbreakable, and Harry didn’t struggle against them. There was little point.
Eric and Malcolm moved in tandem, sliding smoothly forward across the stone floor, hands moving to the clasps of their robes, pushing them aside as they worked at their belts and trousers. Harry didn’t watch. He glared up at Draco, and clamped his mouth shut, teeth grinding together.
“You Gryffindor boys are all the same, aren’t you, Potter? Just love to open those mouths of yours, use them for something proper, eh?” Belt buckles fell open with metallic clinks, echoing quietly in the deserted hall. “Bet that godfather of yours would be proud, you following in his footsteps like this. Sirius never was the proper lad, from what we’ve heard.”
The older boys broke their gaze with Harry to look down at themselves as they opened their trousers, each stroking themselves lazily as they watched the other. Harry still didn’t look away from Draco’s pale eyes. The young man hadn’t yet moved either. The sounds made by the cousins were loud in the quiet of the darkened hallway.
“Uh, Draco?” Crabbe warned and Draco’s eyes flicked away from Harry’s, moving inches over to eye Crabbe questioningly. He and Goyle were watching the cousins, their eyes sparking with confused concern. This wasn’t the usual game plan. Draco looked at his cousins also, but the two boys were too involved in themselves for the moment to notice the others. He looked back at Harry as Crabbe issued a sharp inhale, and his eyes widened.
Blue ribbons of energy crackled from Harry, scorching Crabbe and Goyle’s palms. “Take your hands off me,” he said and the two boys cried out as the energy snaked up their arms hotly.
“Wild magic,” Draco gasped and took a stumbling step backward. Eric and Malcolm looked up and froze. “What do you think you’re doing, Potter?”
A slow, deep slither of a voice came from the darkness. “Defending himself, it would seem.”
“Professor!” Draco exclaimed. “We were just…”
“Yes, I saw. Mr. Goyle, Mr. Crabbe, unhand Mr. Potter. I would suggest you find your way back to your beds. Mr. Malfoy, you as well. Mr. Prewett and Mr. Prewett-Black, right your clothing and follow along.”
“Professor!” Malcolm exclaimed, drawing his robe about himself. “He’s a Gryffindor! How could you even think of…?”
“How could you?” He returned sharply. “My business with Mr. Potter is my own, and no concern of yours. Now, be on your way.”
Draco flicked his eyes at the still kneeling Harry and, as Harry glanced up at him, he spat at the ground. He turned and left, Crabbe and Goyle at his heels, each sparing a glance back at Snape before they disappeared into the darkness. Eric and Malcolm lingered for a moment, but finally, they too followed the others back to Slytherin House. The darkness of the dungeons closed around their retreating shapes.
“I could have handled them on my own,” Harry said, once the sound of footfalls disappeared, and he rose to his feet, his arms and legs quivering with fear he refused to feel. Shame settled low in his stomach. He hated that they had been able to put him in such a position. They had subdued him so easily, so quickly. He’d been powerless, nearly so.
Snape nodded, his mouth twisting into something close to a smile but it looked weak, even for him. “I don’t believe I said I was defending you, Mr. Potter. I have a duty to protect the members of my House, and you seemed on the edge of electrocuting them.”
Harry looked up at him and his own mouth quirked with an amusement he hadn’t felt in months. “It’s good you showed up when you did, then.”
Snape looked at him for a long while, his dark, unreadable eyes intense. Harry shifted, his sore knees twinging, and Snape blinked. “You came to see me for a reason?”
“I’ve finished my homework for the night. I thought we might run through an Occlumency lesson. If you have the time, sir.”
He looked down his nose at Harry for a long moment and then nodded. “Very well.”
Harry followed behind him silently, not intending to speak, but as they reached the entrance to Snape’s study, he found himself saying, “I’m sorry for using wild magic. I… I wasn’t thinking.”
Snape’s hand stopped on the door handle and he looked back at Harry. “No, of course you weren’t. It was a situation over which you had no control. The use of wild magic was an effort to gain control.” He opened the door and they both walked into the room, the door swinging shut behind them. The fireplace burst into life with a glance from Snape and the teakettle hurriedly began to boil. Snape gestured for Harry to sit and he followed into an opposing chair. “You have had previous experiences of a lack of control, haven’t you?”
Harry’s eyes flickered as the memories surfaced.
Snape nodded. “And you will continue to experience such situations, to greater and greater degrees of subjugation. The Dark Lord particularly enjoys creating situations where one is left with few options.” His dark eyes flashed and he turned away, moving his attention to the squealing teakettle. “You must learn to find a measure of control in every situation, no matter how helpless it may seem. Create your own control, no matter how small.”
“Like with the wild magic?” In his mind’s eye, he pictured setting their pale hair alight. He needed for them to know they hadn’t beaten him.
Snape nodded. “But wild magic is dangerous, because it also lacks control.”
“Then how…”
“By learning control, daft boy. Wild magic is uncontrolled, that is true, but it can be harnessed. That is the purpose of the wand, but when you haven’t access to your wand, you have to find other ways.”
“Such as…”
“Such as control of the mind and of the body. Magic is an outside force, harnessed by the wand. That is what students are taught, for the wand is the safest means of harnessing that power, but you can be the wand as well. You can be the harness. You simply need to learn control.”
Harry nodded slowly. He took the offered tea cup from Snape’s hand and turned it between his fingers. “Control over my mind and body, that is the next lesson?”
Snape snorted and sipped his tea. “Occlumency is control over the mind, or have you not been paying attention?”
“I have,” Harry replied, and he turned these new ideas around in his mind. “But now I understand.”
Snape looked over at him and sighed. “Finally.”
“Harry?”
He sighed and looked up from the array of texts he had pilfered from the Restricted Section. Ron and Hermione stood across the long table. Ron shifted back and forth between two feet and Hermione's fingers twisted together. He slammed his book closed and pulled the others closer, away from their eyes.
“What?” He demanded sharply and they glanced at one another.
“Harry, we’re-”
“Look, I’m busy right now, Ron. Is this important?”
Hermione took a deep breath and blindly reached to grip Ron’s hand gently. “We’re worried about you, Harry. You’ve been keeping to yourself all this time and spending so much time alone, or with Professor Snape… we…”
“I’m fine,” Harry snapped and then sighed. He took a deep breath of his own and then looked at his friends again. “I’m fine. I’m just… studying. I have to, well, I have to learn more than I know and I have to do it quickly. Voldemort,” he watched them flinch, “might act any moment. I have to be ready this time. I have to.”
Hermione nodded. She peered over the table at his books, but he drew them closer again.
“What are you studying now? Do you need any help?”
“No,” he shot back and then shook his head. “No. I’m fine. I have to do this alone.”
They glanced at each other again and Ron sighed. “Do you need anything, mate? Uh, sandwich? Cuppa?”
“I’m fine. I just need to finish this,” he eyed them purposefully and they sighed again.
“Right. Well. We’ll… see you later then?”
He nodded, attention going back to the book in his lap. “Sure. Later.” He waited for them to finally leave and then reopened the book to the section he’d been focused on. He smiled grimly to himself and wondered what they would think if they knew he was studying the proper mechanics of fellatio.
Control, he told himself again and began reading again.
“Professor! Professor Snape! Yoohoo! Snaaape!”
After several minutes of ignoring the insufferable woman completely, he stopped dead in the middle of the hall, sending students scrambling to avoid bumping into him. He growled loudly, causing a small, blonde first-year to squeak and jump like a field mouse. Then he turned. Trelawney caught up to him in a waft of silk scarves and lavender incense.
She grinned at him widely, oblivious to his forbidding scowl.
“Congratulations, Professor.”
He growled again, under his breath. He didn’t have time for rubbish. “What are you on about, Trelawney?”
She waved a hand in the air, bracelets clicking. “You’re in love. I’m so pleased for you. A long time coming, isn’t it?”
Snape blinked at her, as did several students before they shook themselves and ran away. “Excuse me? I’m not in…” He cleared his throat and glanced around the hall. The few students who remained in the area doggedly kept their eyes away from him. He looked back at the confused woman, her pleased and radiant expression falling as she tuned into his response.
“You’re… not?” Her eyes flickered hesitantly, but then she smiled knowingly and said, “Then you will be.” She patted his arm, blind to the way he tensed and pulled away. “After all, it is the future I see, not the present. This is lovely. Simply lovely. I do love a happy ending.”
He rolled his eyes. Considering her obsession with doom and gloom, he doubted that last assertion was entirely truthful.
“Trelawney, I am not in love,” his lips curled in a sneer at the words. “Nor will I be in love. And I would appreciate it, in both the present and the future, if you would keep yourself from my business.” He turned away, managing only a step, when a vice-like hand clamped over his forearm and yanked him back. He stared down into the woman’s wide, staring eyes. She opened her mouth and from it came a deep, vibrating voice, filled with power.
“He’d kill for you, Severus. If you’re not careful, the life he takes may be his own.”
Trelawney cackled and released his arm with a snap of her wrist. He stared after her as she wafted away down the long hallway. The sound of her sharp laughter echoed around him long after she’d gone.
Control. Control over body and mind. Harry stood in the dark dampness of the dungeon hallway and waited. He’d checked the Marauders’ map. They were coming.
Snape had left him in the study for a meeting with Dumbledore, and he wasn’t expected back for an hour at least. Plenty of time, Harry thought, to put his experiment to the test. It was an experiment in control. Not control over magic, but control over his body and his mind, his emotions and fears. Harry knew it was always a good idea to start small, but he was impatient. He wanted to prove, not to anyone else - not even to Snape, because Harry knew he would never tell Snape about this - but to himself, that he could do this, that he could face them again, and keep it on his own terms. He needed to prove they hadn't frightened him.
He checked the map one last time, and yes, Snape and Dumbledore were still in Dumbledore’s office, Snape pacing back and forth. And yes, there they were, Malcolm and Eric, the cousins, walking side-by-side, almost on top of each other. And coming closer with every step.
“Mischief managed,” Harry told the map and folded it up, tucking it away into an inner pocket of his robe. He straightened his clothing and his glasses, and leaned back against the wall. The hallway was dark and secluded. No one, rarely even Mrs. Norris, came down it. But the cousins did, and often. Harry had staked it out, surveying the length of it for the perfect spot to implement his experiment. Here, he’d found it. A shallow alcove with a low padded kneeling bench tucked away. Harry hadn’t the slightest idea what the alcove and bench had originally been used for, but he knew what he was going to use it for now.
The lantern light bobbed closer and he stepped away from the wall, standing in the middle of the hallway. His heart stuttered and his stomach clenched as a sharp stab of fear lanced through him, and he berated himself. He had to be strong. The circle of light touched him and the cousins came into view, eyeing him with surprise and dark pleasure.
“What have we here?” Malcolm asked, holding up the lantern. “A lost Gryffindor, separated from his pride. Should we return him?”
Eric smiled and stroked his fingertips down Malcolm’s arm. “Maybe he’d rather join our game.”
Harry didn’t smile. He didn’t feel capable. This was his experiment. It was his game. Time to prove he could control the situation this time around.
“You want to play?” He asked. “Then let’s play.” He gestured with his hand. “Both of you, into the alcove.”
They stopped. Eric’s fingers froze on Malcolm’s arm, but then Malcolm smiled a slow grin and looked at his cousin. “I like the sound of this new game. Care to change our plans, love?”
Eric smiled back, eyes on the unmoving Harry, and he slipped into the alcove. It was wide enough for the two of them to stand comfortably side-by-side, and when they stood entwined together as they did, it left more than enough room.
Harry turned to face them, but he didn’t step near them. His stomach turned over and he curled his hand into a fist at his side. “Robes open,” he ordered abruptly. “Get yourselves hard.”
Malcolm blinked, before a wide, pleased grin spread over his angular face. “Not a problem, Potter. We like the sound of this game. We like it a lot.”
“I don’t care,” Harry snapped. “Get on with it. Robes open, or this won’t happen.”
Eric looked at his cousin, and Malcolm nodded. “Let’s play, little boy.”
Harry narrowed his eyes and said nothing, but his plans for Malcolm made an abrupt change. He waited and watched as they stroked each other to hardness, each seemingly oblivious to Harry, but he knew they were very aware of him.
“That’s enough of that,” he interrupted and surged toward them, palms hitting them flat in the chest and sending them hard against the stone. His hands immediately went down and he grasped their erections, which rehardened quickly after their momentary surprise. He stared them hard in the face as he toed the bench to their feet and sank to his knees.
It required more dexterity than Harry had expected, but holding a broomstick one-handed and reaching for an evasive Snitch had apparently well-prepared him for this moment. He grasped Malcolm’s cock firmly, remembering to stroke the underside with his thumb as he bent forward and slowly took in Eric’s erection. The head felt full and round against his tongue and a bitterness filled his mouth as he sank down over it. It throbbed against his tongue, and above him, Eric groaned and put a hand down into his hair.
He shook off the hand irritably and he pulled off and glared upwards.
“Don’t touch me. Understood?”
Eric nodded quickly, fingers clenching in mid-air. Malcolm glowered at Harry and pulled Eric closer to him to pass him a filthy, open-mouthed kiss while watching Harry.
Harry tightened his grip on Malcolm and mashed his thumb down on the frenulum, and Malcolm jerked back with a strangled yelp. Harry’s mouth curled in derision and he bent again to close his lips around the slick head of Eric’s cock. He sank down around it, feeling it fill his mouth and press against his tongue, feeling it bump against the roof of his mouth. He closed his free hand around the base of it to steady its movements, and he could feel the thrum of Eric’s blood beneath the thin surface of skin as it pulsed thickly in his grasp.
He could do this, he decided, as he rose up and sank down again, as the thick head of the cock pulled over his tongue and against his lips. Above him, Eric moaned and scrabbled his hands to clutch at Malcolm’s robe, fisting the black material. Harry looked up at him and sneered. Look at him. What power did he have now? Harry could hurt him if he wanted to, could end this, could take it to completion, could do whatever he wanted.
Malcolm leaned over and grasped Eric’s hair, pulling his head back to expose his throat, and kissed him, shoving his tongue in and pulling his head closer to seal themselves together. Eric gave a muffled moan, and in Harry’s mouth, pulsed and Harry tasted a thick, salty, musky flavour.
He pulled off again with a wet pop. Eric pulled his mouth away to protest as his cock bobbed aimlessly in the air, and Harry scowled up at Malcolm. “We’re playing by my rules,” he said and grasped Malcolm’s bollocks in his fist and pulled down.
“FUC-” Malcolm let out the beginnings of a scream before Eric muffled it with the palm of his hand. Harry took Malcolm as deep as he could, letting his teeth rest against the swollen skin before he hollowed his cheeks and sucked hard. Malcolm’s cry echoed down the hall before Eric stuffed his tie into his cousin’s mouth and hushed him, whispering soothing endearments.
He kept his hand clutched around Malcolm’s bollocks, a stern warning, and returned to Eric, who groaned as he sank down again around his leaking erection. He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think it would be long now. Eric was leaking steadily into his mouth, filling it now with a salty, bitter taste, and his gasps were becoming short and quick. Eric’s free hand scrabbled at the stone wall, clutching at the sharp curves of the stone. Harry pulled up and dragged his tongue against the underside of the cock and Eric gasped loudly and flooded Harry’s mouth with a musky bitterness.
He choked and pulled off, coughing, and spat on the ground. He winced at himself, and then looked up at Eric, who had closed his eyes and was grasping weakly at the wall.
“Sit down.” Harry ordered him and Eric nodded weakly and slid down the wall. The tie pulled from Malcolm’s mouth and left a trail of spittle against Eric’s shirt.
He looked up at Malcolm, who had one hand threaded through Eric’s hair and the other braced against the stone wall. The older boy smirked and said, “My turn now?”
Harry glared up at him and pulled down again with the hand around Malcolm’s bollocks. Malcolm twitched, but his grin deepened and Harry gritted his teeth.
He bent forward, eyes holding Malcolm’s, and stretched out his tongue to trail it gently against the shiny head of Malcolm’s cock. He did this again and then again and then again until Malcolm was thrusting forward into empty space and against the retreating tip of Harry’s tongue. He fondled Malcolm’s bollocks, pressing his thumb gently between them and rolling them about his palm as he continued his slow and meticulous ministrations. He kept up eye contact and watched in satisfaction as Malcolm began to unravel and tremble, his eyes rolling upward, his mouth falling open.
Finally, Malcolm began to thrust deeper into Harry’s mouth and his gasps rolled together into a steady stream of bitten-off profanity, and he moaned, “I’m going to, Eric, I’m going to…”
And Harry pulled off and sat back and pulled his hands away.
Malcolm moaned and thrust in the empty space toward him, but Harry slid off the bench and stood up.
He would chastise himself later for everything he had done wrong, but now he stood, wiping the bitter taste from the edges of his mouth, and told Malcolm, “If you mention this to anyone, I’ll see to it that you regret it.”
And he walked away.
His legs shook.
He knew he’d do better the next time. Control, like anything else, took practice. Snape had taught him so.
As he put himself to bed that night, wishing Ron a distracted goodnight, he thought about how Snape would react if he knew about Harry’s extracurricular lesson plan. He couldn’t approve. No one would approve. It wasn’t the sort of thing anyone should play at. He could only imagine what Ron and Hermione would say. He felt the distance between them now as a physical thing, a thick boundary of safe space he had created to keep them apart from the danger and chaos of his life, but this was different. This wasn’t someone else causing chaos in his life; this was all him. He had made this choice. It had been him. They wouldn’t understand. They’d think it was unforgivable.
Hours ago, he’d thought the same way. It was something he had to do: he had to prove to them that they hadn’t scared him, prove that he could take what they gave and that he wouldn’t crumble before them. He had thought it was something he had to endure. If word of it got out people would talk, but he had so little time left, it couldn’t matter. He might have a year, at most, before Voldemort came for him, before they had to kill or be killed, before they had to resolve that prophecy and set the future of the entire world.
He had once thought his life would proceed the way his parents would have wanted for him: a wife, children, a cozy home and a proud career, but he knew now that that life would never be his, regardless. He had little chance to survive long enough to realise anyone’s dreams and so he had never bothered to invent a dream of his own. Not sleeping in a cupboard had seemed like enough.
Safe behind the velvet curtains of his bed, his unachievable future took on a new, nebulous shape. It had been uncomfortable and awkward, and neither Malcolm nor Eric were anyone he wanted to touch again, but looking back… He could still feel the heaviness on his tongue, still taste the muskiness. He could remember the sounds he had pulled from them. He could remember the desperation on Malcolm’s face as he pulled away. Under very different circumstances, he might even have enjoyed himself.
But he hadn’t done it as well as he’d hoped to - he could think of a hundred ways he had failed. His hands had shook. His knees had trembled. His voice had broken. He had choked and coughed. But he could do it again. He could do it better. He could win next time. It wasn’t the worst task he’d set for himself over the years. And it was a power and he liked having that power, he thought as sleep curled around him. Snape might not approve of the how, but he had to agree with the power.
As he clutched the thought of Snape close in his mind, Harry dreamed.
He was in the hall again, on his knees again, Malcolm and Eric gasping before him, and he knew Snape stood somewhere in the shadows, watching. And then Snape was there beside him, eyes on Harry, so close Harry could feel his heavy robes brushing against his back, against his arm, his hand warm against his neck. The cousins were gone, and Snape was bending down, lifting him to his feet. He smoothed a hand over Harry’s cheek and his eyes were very dark, and the hallway was gone. He was in Snape’s study, the bitter smell of potions hanging in the air, the scent of the leather chairs, the smell of the fire, and Malcolm and Eric were just a nightmare.
He was safe and Snape was there with him. He was folding his long, long arms around Harry, and holding him close. Harry was enclosed within the darkness and warmth of Snape’s black cloak, held tight against his body. He could smell him, he could feel his heartbeat. He was so safe.
Snape was running his hands along his back, up through his hair, along his neck, over his chest, everywhere. There was no fear. There was no need for control. He was safe.
He was touching Snape. His hands were inside Snape’s cloak, under his shirt, against his warm skin. He was so safe. Everything since the bright green light and his mother’s scream was a bad dream. There was only this warmth, this comfort, this safe space. This wonderful touching, this wonderful heartbeat, and these wonderful hands and dark, dark eyes.
He woke, and for a moment, it was as if the world was sunny and full of colour again. A pleasant ache warmed his belly and his skin tingled at the memory of Snape’s hands against him. Harry’s hands trailed sleepily lower, and from beyond the curtain of his bed, Seamus shouted, “Neville! Your blasted toad is in my bed again!” and Harry woke fully.
And then the heavy, grey weight of it all descended on him.
He had another day full of classes and nosy students before he could retreat to the safety of Snape’s study, but there, he would need his control now more than ever. He couldn’t risk Snape seeing these thoughts. Snape hated him and tolerated his intrusions only because Dumbledore insisted, and this…
He couldn’t risk losing his one safe haven.
It had been a long afternoon and was now deep into the twilight of the evening. Dinner had come and gone, and all that remained was a basket of hardening rolls and a large pot of tea which muttered in annoyance every time it had to reheat itself. Harry sat bow-backed over a dusty tome, finger hovering near the corner of the page, and his mouth moved along the thick words. Snape sat at his desk with two tall piles of essays to mark. The ink had run dry on his quill and he had yet to notice.
Harry sat at an angle to him. He could watch the young man’s mouth moving as he followed the text. He could watch the gentle and careful way he turned each filament-thin page by the upper corner, the way he refrained from touching the old, yellowing paper so as to keep his finger grease from ruining the centuries-old text. He was being respectful of Snape’s book - a book he had certainly never allowed a student to touch previously. Snape wondered if that was an inherent trait in Harry, or if that was another element of his newly assumed personality.
The new personality disturbed him in a way he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Harry was calmer now, more focused, studious, respectful. He didn’t speak back, didn’t crack jokes, didn’t even smile. At least, not as Harry had smiled in years previous. Harry no longer had the smile that sparked uneasily in Snape’s memory and reminded him of that same smile on another’s face, a memory touched with distant echoes of love and laughter. No, Harry didn’t smile that smile anymore, only a new cold and bitter smile, one that pulled unnaturally at his mouth and frosted his eyes. There was no more time wasted on Quidditch. He didn’t whisper to his friends in class. He didn’t drift off into a daydream while he should be working. He was the student Snape had always wanted. He was no trouble. He was perfect.
Snape’s skin itched while he was around him. He wanted Harry back. The one who caused trouble and laughed until his eyes sparkled. He wanted to see the Harry who would sneak out past curfew, and challenge him in class. Who would answer his sneers with snark. Who would get excited over Quidditch, or prop his chin up in class and drift away with that wistful, dreamy look. He wanted the Harry back who could find joy in even the most trying of times.
What was wrong with him? Snape had once actively loathed everything that had identified Harry as Lily and James’ son. He could see Lily in Harry’s eyes and in his smile and his laughter, but from James’ face, that insufferable prick of a man. James’ disdain shining at him from his childhood friend’s kind eyes, James’ pettiness, James’ cruelty.
But they had moved beyond that now, he thought. He could see Harry for what he was, or what he should be, what he ought to be if he would only let himself again. Snape wanted to see it again; in fact, he craved it. Merlin’s tangled beard, even that half-smile out of the corner of Harry’s mouth would suffice. Something to prove that Harry was, in fact, still Harry and not just the tool he claimed to be. Harry as the weapon in training disturbed him in a way nothing ever had before.
“Why are you doing this?” He asked suddenly, voice breaking the silence. Harry turned to look at him and Snape scowled deeply to hide his embarrassment over the question. “Why devote yourself so intensely to being this ‘weapon’ you speak of?”
Harry’s face was pale in the torchlight, with dark hollows under his inscrutable eyes. His cheekbones stood out prominently as the light cast long shadows against his cheeks. He had lost weight, Snape noted, but at the scrutiny, Harry averted his gaze from Snape’s.
“I don’t have time to be foolish,” he answered patiently, as if the question was an ill-timed test. “More people will die if I’m foolish. They depend on me. I have to become what they expect me to be. What they believe I am.”
“Which is?”
The cold smile appeared. “I’m The Boy Who Lived. They expect me to save them. It’s my destiny.” He sat back in the wooden chair, which creaked ominously beneath him, and he glanced back at Snape once again. “Look at Merlin or at all the prophets from muggle history - they were all Boys Who Lived, all with destinies. They were never stupid, never foolish. Their followers expected a certain role from them, and they delivered. That’s what I have to do.”
“You’re comparing yourself to a messiah?”
Bitter smile. “I don’t fool myself into thinking I’m anyone’s messiah. No one prays to me, or I certainly hope they don’t. But people do base their faith around me, and it’s up to me to live up to that faith. I don’t belong to myself anymore. I belong to them. They own me.” He shrugged lightly, dismissively. “I…” his voice stuttered and his features hardened, his lips curling in disdain. “I don’t have a right to… to my emotions. I’m a weapon, a tool, to be used for one purpose only. It’s better this way. It’s how it should be.”
His eyes lost focus as he gazed toward the high, dark windows and then he shrugged. “Right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He turned back to the book and resumed his work.
Snape could feel the ugly taste of bile rising in the back of his throat. Dumbledore needed to hear this. The Headmaster had to know that the time to intervene had long past. Snape swallowed thickly and said, putting more than a touch of annoyance and irritation in his voice, “I have business with the Headmaster and have wasted enough time on minding you this evening. If you intend to continue your studies...”
“I know,” Harry said without lifting his head. “If you aren’t back before I’m done, I’ll lock the door behind me.”
“See that you do,” Snape retorted, sharper than he had intended, but Harry did not react. He paused momentarily in the doorway, glancing at the bent body, the hunched, curved spine, and then shut the door firmly behind him.
He waited with his back pressed against the cold stone. His hands were balled in tight fists against the tremors he couldn’t manage to calm. His knees were locked to keep himself standing tall. When his breath came, it stuttered in his throat, like a butterfly trapped beneath a bell jar.
The air smelled stale, for all that this particular hallway, this particular alcove, had seen more use than perhaps ever before.
Someone would eventually come to find him. Nearly every night he stood here and waited. Word had travelled through Slytherin House and they knew where to look for him. They knew where to find him. They knew what he offered.
He pressed his fists back tightly against the stone wall, until small stones flaked off from its aging surface and imprinted into his skin. The pain of it was welcome. It helped to calm his thoughts and helped to focus his mind. He was here to learn control and he was still here because he had as yet failed to do so. He couldn’t manage to control his feelings and his thoughts. They betrayed him. They whispered things to him, about how this was wrong, how he was wrong, but he was determined to master this.
This was only sex, he told himself, he told the tremor in his arms and the clutch in his belly. People did this all the time. This was normal. If he couldn’t manage to control himself in the face of this, what hope did he have against something worse, against real fear and terror and pain? Death Eaters were known to torture, and he had to figure out how to be in control then, when it really mattered.
Footsteps approached in the darkness and he tensed, turning his head toward the approaching light. It was typically the same people, and Malcolm and Eric had come back often. They didn’t seem to have suffered greatly from either their encounter with him or with Snape. After their attack on him, the professor had officially given them a week of detention with Filch for being “out of rooms after dark”, and unofficially he had turned his cruel eye on them, chastising them for every small infraction and every minor error, but they bore it all with identical smirks. Rumour had it that Snape had been paid a visit by a grim solicitor and given stern warnings from the boys’ fathers, both of whom were suspected Death Eaters.
Harry hated them. They did their best to make him feel soiled and insignificant, and he struggled to maintain his control with them, struggled to shut off his emotions and keep his calm center intact. They wanted to break him. He refused.
The flame of the lantern bobbed into view and Harry startled when two of the seventh year girls came into view. So far, only the boys had come down this hallway. He’d had to turn away the younger boys because that was not the sort of control he sought, but he hadn’t thought that any of the girls would come to find him.
“He is here!” exclaimed the taller of the two, dark skinned with a thick braid of hair draped over her shoulder, and her friend smirked.
“They were whispering about it in the common room the other day,” she swept her eyes over Harry and raised one thin, pale eyebrow. “Had to see it for myself.”
Her eyes were like sharp slivers of blue glass, ready to worm beneath his skin and cut him to ribbons. Harry’s stomach lurched and he took a deep breath. This would not break him either.
When Ron and Hermione returned from their Christmas holidays, it was impossible for them to pretend that Harry hadn’t changed. Denial was no longer an option. This was not something that would easily be resolved. If the rumours were to be believed, their friend had gone beyond what they could reach.
Ron sat in Dumbledore’s office, deep in a plush chair, and all he could think about was the first time he and Harry had met. First, the brief meeting on the station platform, then the train ride itself. Harry bashfully showing his scar and admitting to being “the Harry Potter”. Buying the cartload of sweets because Ron had a hateful corned beef sandwich. Later, facing off against Draco as he defended his barely hours-long friend. Ron could remember the joy Harry had felt on discovering flying, the relief he’d felt at finding Hogwarts and having a place to belong. And even through everything, through Quirrell and Voldemort, through the Slytherin’s Heir episode, through Death Eaters, through the Tri-Wizard tournament, through everything, Harry had never lost that simple joy of experiencing what the world offered him.
Never had Ron imagined that Harry would accept this. Never in his wildest dream had he imagined he would find himself here: that he’d one day find out that his best friend was choosing to give random blowjobs to Slytherins out of a need to prove something - to whom? To himself? Ron didn’t even know how to react to the news. Harry had lost his mind. There was no other explanation. After everything that had happened, it must have been too much for Harry’s mind to take. He’d fallen off his rocker. He had one too many boggarts in his belfry. There could be no other explanation.
Hermione, he noticed ruefully, was not as trapped in shock as he was.
“Did you know he was doing this?” The top of her head came within a bare inch of Snape’s shoulders, but she had him pinned in place through sheer willpower. “You’re supposed to be looking after him! You’re supposed to be his teacher. How could you not know he was doing this? You’re the only one he spends any time with these days. If he’s doing anything, you’d know. And he’s doing it with Slytherins, with your House! How could you not have heard anything?”
Snape refused to be cowed. He stood with his arms tightly crossed over his chest and glared down at her. “No one in this room knew how Mr. Potter was spending his spare time. I can hardly be held to blame.”
Ron met Dumbledore’s gaze. The old man looked at him for a moment, his chin resting on his folded hands, and then he lifted his head and said, “I knew.”
Snape and Hermione turned to look at him as one, and before Snape could say a single word, Hermione turned her fury on the Headmaster.
“You knew? And you did nothing?”
Dumbledore shrugged. “It was his choice. I couldn’t interfere.”
Even Snape looked appalled. “You’re the Headmaster. You can interfere wherever you care to.”
Dumbledore shrugged again, a quick flick of his right shoulder. “I can order him not to engage in his current activity, but he’ll find another way of exerting control over himself. He thinks this control is necessary and ordering him away from this will only push him deeper into darker activities.”
Snape’s face drained of the little colour it possessed and he said in a strained, quiet voice, “Control?”
“Someone told Harry he needed to learn control over himself. Control over his mind and over his body, I believe it was. Harry, left to his own devices, has taken that advice and interpreted it in his own manner.” Dumbledore picked up a frosted cookie and turned it over once before taking a large bite out of it. He chewed for a moment and then said, “I don’t believe that I have any influence over Harry’s current mindset. That honour belongs only to one person, Severus.”
The room was held in a long, pregnant silence. Ron looked up at Snape. All colour had drained from the man’s stark face and he didn’t need to be Hermione to make the mental leap. “You’d better fix this,” he said, his voice louder than expected in the quiet room. Snape flinched at the sound of it, barely noticeable except for the slight sway of his hair around his face. Ron took a deep breath and told him, “If you did this, you’d better fix it.”
Snape watched from the shadows. He wanted to leave, rather desperately, actually, but unlike some other people, he hadn’t an invisibility cloak in which to hide. Any movement on his part would be immediately spotted by the couple. He had missed the opportune moment to step from the shadows, tarried a few seconds too long, and now it was too late.
A small voice in his head told him he didn’t have to watch, didn’t have to listen, shouldn’t be doing it in the first place, but his body didn’t listen. He watched with a morbid fascination, a masochistic inability to look away. The girl’s back was to him, but he could see the way she writhed, the way her spread legs quivered. Her fingers were in Harry’s hair, and Harry’s fingers were on her hips. They held each other close, locked in a carnal embrace. She finally spasmed, throwing back her head, a small, bitten off cry between her lips, and Harry raised his own face from between her thighs. She panted up at the ceiling, catching her breath, no doubt, waiting for her heart rate to slow, and then she looked back at Harry.
“Thanks,” Snape heard her say. Aurora Cartwithe, a seventh year Slytherin. He recognized her voice. “That was great.”
She pulled away from Harry and stood, smoothing down her skirt and robe and tucking her hair back into a messy parody of order. She looked down at Harry, still crouched on his knees. “You need me to…” She gestured vaguely at him, and he shook his head mutely. Snape saw the relief fall over her features. “Right then. Well. See you.”
She walked away without another word, leaving Harry on his knees in the darkness of the secluded hallway.
As soon as her steps retreated far enough to no longer be heard, Harry dropped forward, hands flat against the cold stone ground. His head dropped down. His shoulders shook.
Snape couldn’t remain hidden. His control slipped and his body betrayed him. He walked forward, slippered steps muted, and crouched by Harry’s side. His hand ended up on Harry’s back, stroking minutely.
Harry shuddered.
“Harry,” he said softly, coaxingly, as if he spoke to a wild animal, a bolting pony, an injured hawk.
His reaction was not what Snape would have expected, not that he had a good idea of what to expect as he had very little idea of what he himself did at the moment.
“Don’t!” Harry cried out. “Don’t call me that! I need to you to… Tell me how I’ve failed. Tell me I’m nothing to you. Don’t pity me. Don’t do that to me! I can’t do this without... You have to hate me.”
Snape stared at him, hand frozen on the tense back. “No,” he replied, unthinkingly. “I can’t. I don’t.”
Harry sobbed sharply. His head dropped back down. “Why?” He whispered. “Why not? I need you to.”
“Because,” Snape replied and ran his hand up his back to the narrow patch of pale skin between the dark robe and the midnight black hair. “Because, Harry Potter, it is the person I admire, not the weapon.”
Harry froze under his hand, and Snape did as well. His mind screamed at him, Idiot. Now look what you’ve… Harry gasped suddenly and twisted under his hands. He wrapped his arms around Snape’s waist and pressed his face into Snape’s chest, shoulders shaking violently as he sobbed out his misery. Snape tensed for a moment before he did what he hadn’t allowed of himself since childhood. He released his tightly reined control, and he curled his taller body around Harry’s and buried his nose in Harry’s dark hair, and he covered him from the world within the safety of his arms.