And they have escaped the weight
of darkness

Genre: Romance, Humor
Warnings: slash (two guys doing perverted things to each other), sex, angst, sarcasm, fluff
Rating: M
Pairing: Severus Snape/Harry Potter

Word count: over-all ~ 28,000, this part ~ 3,968
Disclaimer: Not mine. Only the idea has sprung from the deep depths of my mind. Should there be a similar story out there, I certainly do not know about it. This idea just tackled me to the ground and would not let me get up until I wrote it. It all happened very spontaneously and without any preparation.
Summary:Severus Snape (who has a penchant for finding as many synonyms to describe his live as humanly possible) has agreed to do something mad. Something insane, daft, moronic and altogether unacceptable. He has agreed to go on a blind date. And to put a certain spark into the whole situation as well as to make sure he will give the date he has been set up with a chance, he has agreed to take a potion that lets him forget everything he knows about said person. He should have known Hermione Granger would only have requested he do so, because of one person … Harry Potter.

Hehe. I love this story. Love it. Because it caught me unprepared and I had so much fun writing it. I never wrote Severus this way before. Really. His thoughts had me cracking up the whole time. I don't know why he turned out that way. But he just wrote himself like that and I let him. I tried to maintain his way of speaking, though I feel I only succeeded partly in that … Also I feel like I kind of channeled Spock while writing Severus. I read too much Star Trek Reboot fics at the moment … Meh. I hope you like it anyway. ^^ Have fun.

The story is not done yet, but I will do my best to finish it quickly. I just wanted a feedback from you guys.

One last warning though: English is not my mother language. Have mercy on me and my non-existent commas xD

Chapter 1
Mad, idiotic, moronic and unacceptable

I should not have agreed to do this. This was madness. Like … No. There was no other word for this. It was mad. Insane. Altogether unacceptable. Alright fine, obviously there were synonyms available, but I was the master of eloquence, if I said so myself, and the prospect of what I was going to do in a mere hour called for some variety. Because what was going to take place left me … lost in some way. I was out of my depth. Entirely. Possibly irrevocably, because really … A blind date?

Why, by Merlin's grace, had I chosen to do this? I must have lost my mental capabilities. That was the only conclusion I could draw out of my standing in front of the mirror in my rooms at Hogwarts, wearing clothing I had just purchased yesterday at the urging of none other than Hermione Granger and feeling stupid and, which was even more stupid … excited. I was excited, with a heart that hammered as though it wanted to set a record and hands that were clammy. Good grief, I had clammy hands. What respectable wizard in his even more respectable forties had clammy hands, because of a date? None, since my standards for respectability were of a significantly high volume and probably ruled out most of mankind. And now … me too. Severus Snape did not have clammy hands. Period. Even the word sounded moronic. Whenever I thought it, all I saw was a toddler holding up his small hands, proclaiming they were clammy in his high pitched voice. Moronic. Daft. Homely. Like myself, because my hands were clammy. This, by my own definition, made me all of those things, too.

I did not like the feeling of this. I was an accomplished potions master. Some even said the best of the whole of Great Britain. Possibly even Ireland, if you didn't take the person (and I used this word very loosely) into account that brewed his potions in a cave. I didn't count him in. Like I said, my guidelines for respectable people were strict.

But, as I had already mentioned, I was a … veritable man. In my own way at least. Not every person in the world could be veritable and sage in the standardized way of Albus Dumbledore. Most lacked the beard. As did I. Nobody wanted to see me with a beard. Myself included. But what I was trying to say was: Albus Dumbledore may have been the epitome of wisdom and council. What many people didn't see was that they thought him to be those things (even though they were true to some degree) because of the way he had looked. Old. Brittle, but with a glow that came from the inside and told the world that he was strong and should only be underestimated by people with a death wish. The books in his office had told about his knowledge, the unidentifiable objects in his study about his genius. Albus could have worn a robe that displayed the words "I'm with stupid" like those muggle t-shirts I had seen in London. The damned old coot would have gotten away with it.

Me, on the other hand? I didn't give people the impression that it would be unwise to underestimate me. They simply didn't, out of fear that I might kill them anyway. It was not an inaccurate thought. Even the most respectable men had urges at times. If mine were slightly more … bloody than others it just showed my superior … uniqueness. Singularity. Inimitability.
I had a significant amount of books too, but it would certainly be unwise to let others take a closer look at them. Like I said: urges. Let us leave it at that.
Concerning curious items, well … I had a collection of cauldrons. And knives. Which, combined with my urges and the books about urges and people getting the right idea about said urges from time to time didn't make that great of a combination. At least, not a welcoming one. By looking at my life and the way I lived it, nobody felt encouraged to take a closer look. Let alone share it with me.

But back to the topic at hand. A matter of great importance. A blind date. For which I had purchased a muggle suit, simply because Hermione, who I would never call so to her face, thought I would look good in one. Good. Fine. Nice. Maybe even handsome. A ridiculous notion, or so I had thought. But as I was standing here, in front of the mirror, I had to admit that she could be right. I did look those things. Maybe even the last one. It was a black suit with a narrow cut that clung to my slight frame but didn't impair my ability to move. The shirt underneath it was white with black buttons. Hermione had insisted I wear no tie. Her reasoning had been, well … She had said that my chest hair peeking out when the top buttons were undone looked … delectable. I had never seen it that way, but I had decided to trust her with the matter. As I had trusted her to arrange a date with someone that she thought I would like. And who, in return, would find my company pleasant as well.

I sighed, turning from side to side, looking at myself from all possible angles. It had been a long time since I had last worn something else than a robe. It felt liberating in a way but at the same time I felt exposed, too. Should the date prove to be disastrous I would not be able to make an impressive departure that included billowing robes. I regretted that. It was one of my specialties. I reckoned I would look like any other person whose date had gone wrong. Unsure. Self-conscious. Maybe even sad, for Merlin's sake. I was sure I would be able to throw a thunderous expression on my face and make my suitor at least a little bit uncomfortable for rejecting me, but at the same time glad, because I knew what my darkest expressions looked like. Anyone that hadn't liked me, when I was on my best behavior would not be reformed by me pulling faces at him.

But, as Hermione had said, this was not the time to think about how I would look during a possible rejection. This was the time to care about my looks during what could turn out to be the best date of my life. Her words not mine. And since twenty-odd years of spying and trying my best to be the most hateful bastard earth had ever seen, had done nothing to improve my people skills or had left me any time to think about a way to improve my wardrobe, Hermione had taken matters in her hands. Tiny hands. Scary hands. Capable hands. She had behaved as though she had been possessed. I had been dragged into every, to her promising, to me menacing, clothing store and together we had picked out a few things. Trousers, shirts, pullovers … And this suit. She had insisted that I do something with my hair too, but I had drawn the line at that. I had washed and combed it. That had to be enough.

It didn't feel enough, though. The last time I had been on a real date, I had been fifteen and Lily hadn't known it was a date, which made it all a moot point. I had no dating experience. I might as well admit that, since I already felt raw. It was ridiculous. I knew how to kill people in abundant ways, but the thought of having a date actually frightened me.

It was not about the sex.

I knew how people looked at me. With their thoughts so obvious on their faces. Many thought I had never had sex in my life. They were wrong. There may not have been a great amount of it and certainly none that mattered, but I wasn't self-conscious about my sexual prowess.

No, I felt utterly clueless regarding intimacy. Talking, getting to know each other, kissing, stroking, holding each other like it's all that matters. At least that was what I imagined having a lover would be like. What having a partner would be like. I was afraid that I would not be able to fill the silence between conversations with something fitting. That I would turn out to be … lacking in yet another aspect of everyday life. Potions were easy. They followed rules. They were predictable. People were not. I could come up with probability calculations once I had noticed a certain behavioral pattern, but that was no good, since people had a penchant for twisting and turning and showing different sides at unpredictable moments.

I shook my head violently to escape this idiotic train of thought. I had been a good spy in the war. Assessing human beings and the odd vampire had been my job. I had proven myself to be talented at it. I could cope with a date. I would cope with a date. Damned, if I gave in!

If it were a normal blind date, I would probably be able to hold myself together. The problem was that this was going to be anything but.

Hermione Granger had been my colleague for two years. In those years, she had proved to me not only her expertise in anything charms related, but had also grown to be my … friend. I was unsure how this had happened. Her mind was a challenging thing and she had probably seen that, if she wanted the most mentally stimulating debate she could have at Hogwarts, she would have to talk to me. Hermione Granger usually got what she wanted. And I had found her pleasantly refreshing myself, even more so, since she had asked my advice on a potion she had been dabbling on for some time. A weekend project, she had said. Ha. It had been so much more than that. It was a groundbreaking invention that had gotten her a whole article in "Potions Weekly" as well as many interviews. She called it the Excaecare Potion, which, if you translated it, meant "blinding". It was a misleading name, but she had insisted it was pure genius. The potion did not blind the drinker in a physical sense. If you added a body part of another person, a hair or something similar, and drank it you would forget everything you had previously known about said person. It would be as if you had never met them before in your life. If I were to drink the potion with a hair from, for example Hermione in it, I would not remember her. At least, not in person. I would probably still recognize her name from the potions article I had read about the Excaecare Potion and from the times she was in the newspaper because of the war. But no personal memories whatsoever.

She insisted that I took it tonight. The reason was obvious, as she had set up this date with a person she insisted to remain unnamed until I had met them. She said we would hit it off, if we gave it the chance. Which of course meant I knew them. And that I probably wasn't very fond of them too. Or they of me. My worries were obviously not without foundation, which made the whole matter even worse.

I sighed deeply and started pacing around the room, waiting for Hermione to bring me the potion. This could go wrong on so many levels. What if I woke up tomorrow and found myself deeply in love with Mundungus Fletcher? That would not be acceptable. If something like that was going to be the case, I would not leave my rooms ever again. At least not, after I killed both Hermione and Fletcher. The only good thing here was that the potion would leave my system after about twelve hours. Twelve hours of "blindness" concerning a person. From a scientific view this was fascinating. But I wasn't a lab rat, was I? There was no enjoyment in this for me. And if there was any, it would probably be gone the moment I woke up and was able to think clearly again.

A knock snapped me out of my reverie and I crossed the way to the door with a few long strides. I opened it and found myself face to face with the person that had put me in my current state.

"Hi, Severus. Are you still freaking out?" Hermione Granger said with an annoyingly chipper voice and bullied her way into the room by elbowing me in the arm. Her curly hair was done up in a ponytail and her eyes were actually sparkling. She was amused. Amused by my demise. How fitting.

"Even if I were, it would be totally understandable. Considering the circumstances", I answered smoothly.

Of course I didn't fool her. She cocked one eyebrow. "Oh, really? Why are you fiddling with the sleeves of your suit then?"

I almost flinched as she called me on this nervous habit and ceased the motion I had been unaware of doing immediately. There was no need for her to be so perceptive, so why had she developed this character trait? It was possible she had done it simply to annoy me. Annoy, infuriate, agitate.

"I did no such thing", I said defiantly and looked darkly at her. She had the audacity to snort.

"Right. You are a nervous wreck and don't even try to deny it. I can look right through you."

"Of course you can." If my tone was sarcastic, it was intended that way.

Hermione grinned at me and pulled a vial out of the pocket of her dark blue robe. The content of it had the color of amber, not unlike whisky. This was it. Blindness for twelve hours. Freshly brewed and bottled. Through the haze of feeling unwell, I could still appreciate the beauty in this.

"So, there it is. Your future!" Hermione cajoled and shook the bottle a little bit. To emphasize, probably. I felt uneasy.

"Are you sure you should shake it that way?"

She let out an impatient growl and narrowed her eyes at me. It seemed I had overstepped an invisible boundary that had marked her patience, endurance, longanimity.

"There is nothing explosive in there, Severus! You know that! Stop being so stupidly skittish about this! Everything will be fine."

I closed my eyes for a second and sighed in order to regain my bearings. Hermione was right. I was acting illogical. When I looked up, something in her face had changed. Had made it softer and, in a way, understanding. She licked her lips and smiled in a crooked way.

"You know that, right? Everything is going to be okay. You'll see. Or do you honestly think I would pair you off with somebody totally unsuited to you? Don't you trust me in this?"

I shook my head. "Of course you had to make this about you, Granger."

She laughed. "That's right. All of this is only for me. You are doing me a favor. If it makes it easier for you, you can see this as the one last testing phase of the potion. Who would be more equipped to make sure that everything is in order, than you? And tomorrow you can wake up, take some notes of what you experienced and who knows? Maybe you will have the start of a new relationship right in front of you."

She stepped closer to me and laid one of her unusually small hands on my upper arm. As irrational as her words were and even though we both knew that this wasn't about testing a potion that had already been approved of by the council anyway, it … helped.

"And you know, Severus? This guy I am setting you up with … You did say that you don't care about gender, right? Because I don't want you to have a freak out. Well, more of a freak out than …"

"Gender is of no consequence to me", I interrupted her. There was no need to linger on my being uncomfortable.

"Okay. Well, this guy … he has had a rough time, too. People don't see him for the person he is and …", she sighed. "I guess, I just want to say that he knows how it feels to be singled out, okay? I mean, there is probably nobody out there that fully understands what you have been going through your whole life, but … I just … I am sure that he will be able to relate."

She tightened her hold of my arm. The warmth of her hand started to seep through the fabric of my suit and it felt oddly calming.

"Just give this a chance, will you? I think you're going to be good for each other. Spectacularly so. Try it. And if I was wrong, you don't have to repeat this after today. Does that sound tolerable?"

I nodded and straightened to my full height and Hermione took the cue for what it was and let go of me. I was as ready as I would ever be. I would give it a chance. I was tired of being lonely. And Hermione was a good judge of character, as long as she had all the relevant facts. In this case, I believed she did.

"Give it to me, then", I demanded and she snorted, probably due to my imperious tone. But she did not comment. I shot her a glare.

She pulled a face at me and more or less shoved the vial in my outstretched hand. It was warm, because she had held it for such a long time. Warmth was of no significance. The potion would work either way. Hot, cold, lukewarm, cool … It did not matter.

Hermione pursed her lips and her eyes darted expectantly between me and the vial. I let the corners of my mouth curl into an unpleasant expression and uncorked my downfall. I sniffed at the potion, since it was supposed to smell like the person whose part it contained. It smelt like oranges and something musky. Something more primal. Distinctively male. It was … agreeable.

With nothing left to stall me I said: "Cheers" in the most ironic tone I could muster and gulped the potion down. All I could taste were oranges.

I had no way of making sure the potion had actually worked. Not until I met the person my brain had been forced to forget. It had to be a strange feeling, I mused. To know that you ought to know the person in front of you, but still not being able to remember …
I had faith in Hermione's skills. As I had grudgingly admitted to her when she started working on this project, she had been, after Draco Malfoy of course, the most able student I had had in years. She had been needlessly smug about this revelation. In hindsight, I should probably not have told her. Maybe I would not be in this mess then.

But there was no use in dwelling on past mistakes now. I was on my way to my first date that could actually be described as such. Hopefully, at least. My faith in this mysterious person that was supposed to emphasize with me and my past was not of enormous proportions. I was still skeptical, despite Hermione's reassurances. I would believe it, the moment I saw it with my own eyes. It seemed to be too good to be true.

We would meet in an Italian restaurant in muggle London. We all had agreed that this would give me and my date the bonus of even more anonymity. Hermione had reserved a table for us. I was standing in front of the building now, unable to just do the reasonable thing and walk in. It was a small restaurant. Cozy, I guessed. The exterior was made out of dark wood and somebody had installed chains of lights at the entrance. The restaurant also had a small terrace and I could hear the murmur of the guests that resided there at the moment. It was August, so it was warm enough to sit outside. It was a nice enough place. Even though the name of the establishment (Tony's) didn't leave me in the dark in regards to the imagination of the owner. But I guessed, that was just as well.
I usually didn't think about such trivial things as restaurants. The Leaky Cauldron would have been an adequate location for me too. But it had been pointed out to me that I obviously had to lack brains if I really thought so. After that, I had kept my thoughts to myself and let Hermione and The Stranger arrange everything. It didn't sit entirely well with me, to be so utterly out of control, but what could I do? I had agreed to this. That had been my first mistake. The following ones seemed tiny and unimportant in comparison.

I raised my arm to look at my wristwatch. Thankfully, I had arrived too soon, so that I would be right on time, if I were to enter the restaurant at this instant. I did not have patience with any form of tardiness and did not want to give my date the impression that I did. I steeled myself against every probability that could occur and that I, of course, had thought through throughout the course of this day, and made to enter Tony's.

Inside, I could make out the voices of many people. It was obvious that this restaurant was well frequented, which gave me the hope that the food would not be unbearable. The music that I could hear was, though Italian, not annoying so far. I counted that in as a good thing, too.

A waiter stood behind a kind of reception and, attentively, directed his gaze at me.

"Can I help you, sir?"

I lifted an eyebrow, but refrained from answering in a sarcastic manner.

"Reservation for Granger?" I asked him entwined my hands behind my back.

His eyebrows lifted in a manner that I recognized as surprised. He looked me up and down which made me narrow my eyes at him. What was this supposed to mean?

"Of course, sir. Your … guest has already arrived. Let me show you the table", he said and indicated to follow him.

This also explained the inane look he had given me. Obviously, he found me to be lacking, compared to the man I was going to meet in mere seconds. I proceeded to shoot daggers at the back of the man as I followed him. He was a waiter. He did not have the right to assess me. But that, as it was the case for so many other people, had not stopped him. And it had reminded me that I generally did not like people. What a happy note to start this evening!

The vile (scurvy, villainous and downright ghoulish) waiter and I moved past quite a few tables that were thankfully not decorated with red and white checked table cloths, before we came to a halt and I found myself eye to eye with a man that had the most ridiculous hair I had ever seen. I blinked. He grinned. And all I could think about was the fact that I did not have any potions on me for the very probable possibility of having a heart attack right now.

Sooo, that was the first chapter. I know it was sappy as sap and Severus was a bit out of character, but what the hell. I wanted a bit of unsure Severus and that is what I got. Live with it, y'all. Next chapter will be up soon. Tell me what you liked and what you didn't like. It's not like it will change anything, since I've already written the whole story xD

Marsali