One Hand

This is short, and at the same time, I'm in love with it. It actually made me cry writing it (I'm something of a baby though so that doesn't come as too much of a surprise to me). The general theme is that one hand is capable of doing a lot of damage. I don't think that many of us as human beings understand how much good, and alternatively, how much evil, we can create with a single hand. I hope that you all enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it. It was an emotional purgation for me of sorts.

His eyes were cliffs that dropped into the depths of an open sea, brewing under the threat of a storm that was still miles off. As the ominous clouds approached, the wind flicked through the water's waves, whispering of the rain and the thunder that was to come shortly.

As Severus stared into these unseeing eyes, he made to bring some sense of reality back to their owner. Cautiously, uncertainly, he lifted a hand and waved it. He spoke a word or two, and yet there was no reply. He was just about to give up and move on to other things when Harry stirred from his memories and looked up at the man. He was breathing slowly, softly, the corners of his mouth twitching. It fascinated Severus, and he observed the trembling, which proved to be far less painful than watching the actual boy sitting before him.

"Harry," he said. His voice was a mile away. It was spinning across the streets of London, hurrying past the country's borders and sailing into the world at large. As he crouched down and buried his face in his hands, he knew that the words were now far out into the universe itself, floating among various constellations. "Harry, listen to me."

Harry's stare snapped sharply to Severus' shaking form, and the man lifted his head to a perfect view of those green eyes. The storm was now blowing directly over their oceans, and he had but to take one more step and he would fall off the cliff and into their clutches.

Harry thought of the battle. He thought of Voldemort's body, falling like a twisted oak tree in the midst of an electric storm. His eyes had been wide, almost comically so, and as he had fallen Harry had felt nothing in his heart but fear. It was impossible to tell what would happen once he had won, and he had stood still, seemingly on the brink of death itself, clutching hopelessly at his wand.

He looked down at it now, sitting in his lap. How foolish it was. Made of wood and gleaming in the moonlight, he felt the limits of its strength. He knew now that it was utterly useless to him when it came to matters beyond those of the physical world and to those that with his head, with his beliefs. With his heart.

"Harry," Severus repeated. "Listen to me, please."

Harry thought of their last night together. Severus had slipped off his cloaks enticingly and called onto Harry like a man desperate to be cleaned of his sins. He had seemed helpless that night, and Harry had been incapable of denying him that sole pleasure. When he had taken the man's length into his able mouth, licking with perhaps more fervour than he had been expected to show, he had meant only to heal. But it wasn't long after they had finished whispering one another's names, trapped in a small bubble in which no sound came in or went out, that Harry had felt that familiar sinking of his stomach. He had caused only further damage to the broken man lying before him, body half-twisted in the sheets, feet tangled in his trousers. Severus had been so life-like then, sweating and sighing, the groans of his joints matching those that he made when he was close to release. Now, as he sat before Harry, attempting to gather his attention, he was nothing more than a surreal vision. He was a dream, a fantasy, and as his mouth stretched wide Harry could hardly make out the words that he spoke.

"We need to get out of here," Severus was now whispering.

"Leave?" Harry finally spoke, far too loudly, as a single memory reached him above all of the others crowding into his mind. He thought of Voldemort's fall, and the anticlimactic moments afterwards in which the Death Eaters had fled.

"Yes." Severus nodded, relieved that the boy was apparently capable of coherent speech. "Get up, Harry, please."

He made himself rise from the ground and extend to Harry a single hand. The boy looked at it for a few moments, then allowed his eyes to follow the arm that connected Severus' hand to his body. Close to that arm was his lover's face, oddly illuminated by the lights surrounding them. Some were red flashes, others were green, and all of it was bathed in the strange light of the moon.

"One hand," Harry murmured, gazing at his own. "One hand."

For one hand was all that it had taken to slay Voldemort. One hand was all that it had taken the latter to destroy his parents. One hand was enough to hold a lover, save a life, snap a neck, wave a wand. One hand could do so much damage that Harry almost felt it necessary to curse his own off. He had proven in the last hour that he wasn't to be trusted with such a weapon: he had killed dozens, and they were now scattered across this field, smoking peacefully .

"Harry." Severus' tone hardened. "We need to go. Now." He looked back, hair whipping across his face, as the sound of hoarse shrieks reached their ears. They were approaching, and he feared the worse.

"One hand, Severus." Tears were now rolling down his face. "I love you. I love you, and I've shown you that, and it only took one hand."

"Harry, I'm going to do Side-Along Apparition," he said in defeat. He feared that he would break the boy and splinter what few bits of his mind were still intact. But the group of Death Eaters, he knew, would not remain hidden in the darkness for long. In seconds their masks would be revealed, and they would curse the destroyer of their leader.

He bent down to grip the boy, but Harry shouted in protest. In that instant, a flash of green burst into the boy's vision, blinding him. When at last he could see again, he felt a sagging weight on his shoulder. Thoroughly confused, sight obscured by black dots, he looked over and saw that Severus had fallen to the ground.

Fearful and yet not fully aware why, Harry Apparated before the Death Eaters had the chance to curse him as well. As he arrived in a house, filled with small luxuries such as a regal bookshelf and a few armchairs, he sprawled out onto the floor and shut his eyes.