Title: Responsibility
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: SSHP
Rating/Warnings: M. SLASH! This means boys kissing (and other things-ing) other boys! If that is not your sort of thing then for goodness sakes get out of here!
Summary: AU. Harry is a servant to the House of Black whose world is turned upside down when the late Lord Sirius Black dies, leaving him everything with just one condition…. He must marry Scottish Laird and Sirius's sworn enemy Severus Snape.
Prologue
England lay in the icy grips of winter. The sleeping earth was glazed with a fresh layer of snow and ice, which glowed under the pale light of the waning moon. The bare, frozen arms of trees raked the cloudless sky. A low rumbling broke the bitter silence. The rumbling soon became the thunder of horse hooves tearing wildly at the snow and sod.
A man clung desperately to the back of a large grey stallion, urging the animal to go faster with frantic flaps of a leather rein. The man's shoulder length black hair whipped about in the freezing wind. Blue eyes, usually dancing with laughter, now shone with determination and fear. Less than a quarter mile behind him, four men rode hard in pursuit. The pursuant didn't dare glance behind him. He only prayed that the Lord make his mount's feet fly fast and true, a life – no, a kingdom – depended on it.
His prayer, it seemed, was ignored.
The grey stallion suddenly slipped on a thin black sheet of ice, he and his rider came crashing down with an anguished cry. The man rolled free of the horse as it fell, escaping the animal's crushing weight. He scrambled to his feet and desperately urged the stallion to do the same. It was no use, one look at the odd angle of the horse's leg confirmed that the limb was broken. The man turned to continue fleeing on foot, but it was too late. His pursuers were upon him.
"You're too late, Black," the biggest of the four men sneered. "Even if you had managed to warn him, your warning would have fallen on deaf ears."
"He would listen to me!" Sirius growled with a conviction that belied his internal uncertainty.
"Our Lord has far more influence than you can imagine. Far more influence than you, for certain! Your family fell out of favor long ago."
"As I recall, the House of Black regained his Majesty's favor when I became Lord," Sirius hissed.
The man huffed and dismissed him with an impatient wave of his hand. "No matter. This is where your journey ends, I'm afraid. Our Lord won't take any chances. It wouldn't do for you to whisper nasty lies to the King, now would it?"
"They're not lies if they're true, traitor!"
"Goodbye, Sirius," the man said pleasantly.
Many miles away at Black Manor, a young man woke with a start. His bright green eyes flashed in the night as an uneasy feeling settled in his chest. Somehow, he knew that his whole life was about to change.
TBC…
AN: Hello, friends! It's been a while since I've written anything that's not a drabble and this story just crawled into my head and wouldn't leave so…. Here I am and here it is. I'm exceedingly busy as I am in an accelerated medical program and have to go to school year round and take a zillion credits per semester. Furthermore, I have to take one of the most important tests of my life (the MCAT) in a little over a week so don't expect an update until after that monster is taken care of. Other than that, please read, enjoy, and review! Constructive criticism is welcomed. I love writing but I know I'm nowhere near perfect, so any help is appreciated!