Title: Necrophilia
Author: WolfHawk
Disclaimer: It all belongs to JKR, no profit made, no infringement intended
Pairing: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Rating: PG-13 for overall oddity
Archive: Yes, please. Give us a heads up though.
Word count: 1,906
Warning/Notes: Character death. Never thought I'd write one of those. It's just weird. Very weird. Really quite, quite odd. Similar to another one I wrote, "Mad Penelope's Love Song." Stream of conscious-y and non sequitur-ish. Rest at ease though, for despite the misleading title, there is no necrophilia. Written on a whim, unbetaed to contribute to the fantastical quality of the strangeness. The line "someone who should be here is gone" is somewhat paraphrased/stolen from Anne Sexton's "The Abortion".
He's becoming more and more of a necrophiliac every day. Well, that's not strictly true, now is it. Because he feels no need to spend every night in quiet vigil beside every dead person, and no other cadaver stirs him to the nameless emotion that drives him these days. Just this one. So that's not really a love of the dead, is it. Just a love of a dead. A dead boy, who shouldn't be dead. If anything he should be dead. For no other reason than the laws of probability and chance demand it. Not to mention justice. But where had justice ever played a role in either of their lives? No, this messy ink-haired boy stretched out under glass, knew little of justice. Perhaps even less than himself.
Sometimes he takes the glass off. He shouldn't, really, and he knows he has no right to. Perhaps, though, he bought the right from the first time he exchanged his highly coveted sleep for kisses and feathery hands. Of course, without that, he probably wouldn't be sitting here, night after night, staring and staring and becoming more and more…something. More crazy, possibly. More tired, definitely. But what else? What else was this bizarre and almost inexplicable endless wake doing to him?
He was sure the rest of them knew. As if the resting place of the vaunted Harry Potter (Order of Merlin, first class, posthumously, obviously) wouldn't be under heavy surveillance. Funny, how he didn't really notice them anymore. At first he'd shied away during the day, when the streams of mourners, ceasing their celebrations long enough to pay tribute to the man who made it happen. The one, the only, Saviour of the World, Mr. Harry James Potter! The voice that said that in his head sounded increasingly like that twit of a wizard who hosted that one ridiculous and absurd "game show." It annoyed him. His mouth would curl involuntarily, and then (involuntarily of course) he would be reminded of that other one, that boy (man) there, who had also frequently caused similar snarls.
Towards two and three in the morning, it seems as though the castle ceased breathing, and the world is terribly, terribly still. This is when he gets the most scared, the most afraid for his sanity, because he swears that Potter sits up and talks to him, only then he wakes up, sore and drooling on the cold stone floor, and it was only a dream right? Only sometimes he thinks that maybe he tries so hard to convince himself that he isn't crazy and that it was a dream, that it must actually not be a dream, must be real. Or he wouldn't be quite so frightened. And then his thoughts jumble and merge and the clear, sweet voice of Potter breaks into his fugue, long enough to relive their first real conversation.
"Mr. Potter."
"Harry. If you've not noticed, sir, I'm no longer your student."
"Is there anything I can do for you Mr. Potter, now that you are no longer my student?"
"Yeah. You could call me Harry. Please, sir." He added impertinently.
"I don't see why that is necessary, Harry, since this is the last time, I hope, that we shall ever have the pleasure of each other's company."
"Why Severus, I didn't know you cared."
"I do not 'care', Mr. Potter. And I do not believe I gave you permission to call me by my name."
"So you don't find me at all…attractive? Severus?" Harry had been thrilled (Snape could remember seeing it on his unguarded face) to see the potions master so thoroughly caught off and nonplussed.
"I – you're – my student, Mr. Potter."
"Harry. And no, technically I'm not."
"And you're – you. And I'm, well, I'm me."
"So you're…not attracted to me."
"I didn't say that, Potter."
"Oh. Oh." And then that singularly dense child had wrapped his arms around Snape's tired neck and presses gentle, clumsy kisses to the tight skin across his face. The wonder of it had stayed with him so this is his most frequent dream. It's always then, right after those softly inept yet utterly perfect kisses begin, that Snape wakes up, abruptly as though a Dementor had trailed his amorphous and chilling fingers down his spine. He wakes up hard and confused, on the floor, with the torches burning low and it's so dark, he hasn't really noticed, and he has to get some sleep sometime…
Tonight, though, so far, it's all right. Going on midnight and the phantasmagoria hasn't begun. Yet. His thoughts lazily swirl around, liquidly segueing from each disjointed and unrelated thought to the next. People have forgotten, he muses idly, that philio is just love, unlike eros which is that kind of love. And he's not a necroerotic. Not yet anyway. He feels no stir of passion or flame of desire as he looks at the still body surrounded by that ludicrously gold-gilt glass. Like that ridiculous Muggle tale of Snow White. Only Harry isn't a Princess, and no matter how many times his greasy Potions master kisses him, he won't wake up.
He remembers, smiling slightly, the time that Harry had been so frustrated and tired (as he had been so often in that year succeeding graduation) and one too many of Snape's snarky comments had pushed him over the edge.
"You FUCK!" he'd screamed, and he'd tackled him, hard, harder for the fact that Snape wasn't expecting it all; he always forgot that Harry was born a Muggle and in times of crisis reverted to the physical violence he knew so well. Snape had closed his eyes and allowed Harry to pound out all his anger and frustration in Snape's unresisting form, swearing and smacking and slapping. As the anger has subsided, he'd kissed Snape in a wordless apology, which Snape accepted, kissing back. They'd had fantastic sex, and never said another word about it. Did Dumbledore know about Harry's penchant for violent and uncontrolled outbursts? Beating Snape like a beleaguered housewife? Did Ron? Hermione? Or was it only him? Always after he remembers that incident, here in the dark in the quiet, the water in his eyes starts to – maybe – increase, and it's at this time that he's closer to tears than he ever is.
He isn't sad, exactly. Regret, remorse, they play a small part. Guilt, certainly. Guilt is his constant companion, his own personal Harpy and Dementor, making sure he never forgets what he is and what he owes. He grieves, maybe that's a better way to put it. A niggling detail at the back of his mind – someone who should be here is gone. And really, if he'd moved a little faster or paid more attention to Voldemort that last time, that small secret smile and Snape – so stupid! – too worn out to pay it much heed, and look! look who suffers for it! Is it him? No! Justice? When had they ever known anything of that?
"Hello Severus." And even though it's impossible – he knows it is – Harry pushes off his glass cover and begins speaking to him. If Snape turns his head quickly enough he can see that Harry's body is still lying peacefully where it has lain for 47 nights, but that doesn't stop this Harry from pushing his glass cage off and swinging his legs (he's dead! he can't do that!) in that painfully familiar, insolent way. Finally, finally, he's going mad.
"Harry." Warily.
"Come to gloat, have you?"
"Of course not! Harry, I – "
"Of course not!" he mimics cruelly, and that grimace of teeth isn't anything like Harry would've done, and Harry smirks at him and he suddenly realises that this is the price he has to pay, and this is his guilt and he accepts it willingly, every word that comes from dead-Harry's mouth because he knows that somehow he must deserve it.
"You didn't save me! Why didn't you save me? You never loved me! You only used me – just like everyone else."
And tiredly, more tiredly every night, he tries to answer Harry's corpse, but it doesn't work, and Harry cuts off his perfunctory, "Of course not, Harry, I tried, Merlin, I tried, but – " with more mocking laughter, and it's all Snape can do not to bang his head on the stone floor, crushing it until he longer has to think or hear:
"Snivellus is a good name for you. It's what you are. All that bullshit about essential to the Order. Bollocks! You're a fucking coward Snivellus! Are you going to cry some more Snivellus? Black is right," and that's odd, and Snape knows (he was a spy for so very very long, he should know) that that isn't quite right, that Harry (his Harry) would never use the Penseive knowledge against him, that this Potter isn't that Potter, and that he would never use the epithet for his godfather that Snape would use, and the man's dead for Christ's sake –
"You are a whiny stupid fuck, and completely rubbish in bed. What could ever make you think I would want greasy snivelling bastard Snape?"
And his voice of reason – so active and persuasive in his conscious life – is quite, quite silent and dead (like so many things!) in these early morning hours, and he knows there's something he's missing (like the fact that Harry had made all the moves, and Harry had reassured him countless times, and that if anything Harry used and abused him) but it's just out of reach and he's so goddamn fucking tired –
"Are you crying Snivellus?" And that's the last thing he remembers hearing when Albus – no, no, he's dead, they all are – when Minerva's angular hands rub at his shoulders and head, as they have many many many mornings since it happened, and he wakes, hating consciousness and elated that dead Harry is no longer undead. She never says anything, and he suspects it's only partially due to the fact that her voice was stolen by a particularly vicious offshoot of Silencio. He's grateful either way.
Tonight. He knows it has to be tonight, because frankly if he doesn't leave now – one hundred days after Potter's demise – that he'll just die here, and he isn't sure, yet, if that's quite what he wants, and he certainly isn't going to allow a mere Potter to dictate whether he will live or die.
"Mr. Potter." But he stops, because that's not quite right, and he doesn't want Potter waking up and moving that glass case and telling him all over again, so he amends:
"Harry. I…" only here it becomes more difficult and he has to think, has to think hard and his head hurts because he's been trying so hard not to think since it happened and –
"Harry. I love you. I mean, rather, that I loved you. But now you're gone. And so is Voldemort. I suppose I shall see you soon enough, wherever you are, you impatient brat. I hope so anyway. I shan't be coming back though, you know why. Goodbye Harry Potter." He presses a kiss to the glass (he won't take it off tonight), takes a deep breath, and leaves Harry for what he hopes is the last time.
In the dark through the glass, the corners of the mouth of the Boy-Who-Lived look, from the corner of Snape's eye, as though they might be smiling.