Authors note: This is my first fiction since I went on hiatus back in 2009. This is obviously an alternate reality, however it follows the book canon to a certain extent. Lets just say September 1997 is when my AU picks up and it isn't fortified until after Voldemort's defeat. Im sure my bright and beautiful readers will realize without me telling them exactly what makes this story AU. Albus was born in 1881 so in my story he died at the young age of 115 years old. And the average lifespan of a wizard in my original fiction that I should be posting on FictionPress in a few months is 190-230 years old for a man and 200-240 for a woman.
OOC SS/HP; Implied MPreg. If you squint you can pretend its about some magical gift, but Harry is pregnant and the gestation time for a wizard in my universe is 30 months. Some magic use that I decided needed to exist is also in here.
~~Christmas Eve, 1997, Muggle London~~
Harry Potter walked through the large doors. Large might have been an understatement, but they opened very easily having not used any magic. Large is as good a word as any he would use to describe them because they were not grandiose. They were plain brown wood doors, they were simply very large. He paused in the doorway, frigid wind still whipping at his back, listening to the choir director as he observed the walls. "Now girls," the director was a short homely woman dressed in a stereotypical yuletide sweater and her jeans were well worn. She had bright pink snowboots on that amazingly enough, matched her hair. When Harry glimpsed her profile she was very young and very pregnant. Her aura though, glowed. She was a witch of some sort. Her accent indicated an American one, but it was British enough for her to know about the war. He kept his head down. "You were slightly off and its only because we've never practiced here before. The echo is throwing you off. Pay it no mind and sing like you would in our choir room at the school." The girls replied an affirmative and their melodious voices once again filled the space. The choir was dressed in casual wear, and Harry assumed they would be properly dressed in something nice for their concert. Male voices joined in and Harry walked further into the room and saw them on a balcony above the walkway. Their director was unmistakable. It was one of Harry's grade school teachers. The man was a horror to Harry in school - he was far too mean to be working with young children and often complained he would rather be working with older students. Seems that he had gotten his wish. Seeing the man felt good in a way. Harry called forth all of those bad memories from his muggle education, closed his eyes and let them slip away. Any anger or grief that filled him before, that lingered from the muggle life he was leaving behind fled from him. He felt his soul lightened. He could envision his sickly green aura, infected from the multiple killing curses he had endured, lightening in color. A small smile graced his grim face.
He took another moment to observe where he was. This counted the fourth church he had wandered into in the pitch black night but it was by far the nicest. This was more cathedral than church, unlike the others. The hall and pews were made from stone and hardwood. Marble columns lined the walkways and stained glass windows were illuminated by candles he assumed to be battery or electric powered. The lights lining the ceiling and walkways were also designed to be flickering candles and he enjoyed the gloomy but hopeful atmosphere that reminded him of his home at Hogwarts.
He found his place of worship.
He sat in a pew and leaned back and listened as the choir practiced their christmas carols. He frowned a little when they sang Jingle Bells - it did not fit the place they sang it in. It didn't fit, but shortly after they sang Carol of the Bells and he felt better. It was beautiful.
He allowed the sound to wash over him. He closed his eyes. He felt it fill him. It pushed from his chest and his heart and lungs filled with longing and he felt joy ripple from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes. As the voices of the girls rose and crescendo the feeling burst and he quickly doubled over before anyone would notice the small light he knew he was emitting. The glow that surrounded him when music filled the air and when hope and love existed for him. He heard the choir director compliment the women and the director up with the men exclaimed they sounded fantastic. "Next we will be practicing Mozart's Requiem so go get some water, get some food and we will be right back. The soloists should be here very shortly. If not, I think we have a small audience that would like the carols again." A smattering of older men and women in the very front of the large cathedral heartily agreed. Harry assumed they were the parents of the children singing.
As the children loudly clamored from the choir steps that were made from hardwood behind the altar, he pulled down a prayer bar and got to his knees. He was colored surprised when he heard some of the children whispering that they should be quiet so he could pray. The noise practically vanished. He appreciated that.
He settled on his knees, clasped his calloused hands together, and placed his forehead atop his thumbs. He waited patiently. Fifteen minutes passed and then twenty more passed. But he stayed kneeled on the hard cushion. His mind blank as he waited. He faintly heard a soft scuffle of feet passing him down the aisle. He heard a soft tap on metal, a soft inhale, and the girls were singing Carol of the Bells again. The feeling of being full, of his heart bursting to be free from his chest and the delightful suffocating joy filled him again.
He began to pray. He didn't know who he was praying too, or if anyone would listen. He didn't know what religion the wizarding world followed and he found that he couldn't care. He had secrets no one else could know, but if there was a deity in the sky, and if they did care they already knew. He needed to say it anyway. And so he began to pray in a soft whisper, made even softer by the magic he exuded to secure that no one in the cathedral could hear him. Although no one in the cathedral could hear him, one man, seven hundred miles away could hear him loud and clear through a bond they didn't even know they shared.
~~Christmas Eve, 1997, Hogwarts~~
Severus Snape paced his office wearily. The portraits of past headmasters were dozing or getting ready to sleep. Dumbledore's was smiling sadly. "You do realize what you've done don't you? You've put him in a very hard place. I have intelligence that neither of his two cohorts know his whereabouts since your little polyjuice tryst three months ago. Though, thankfully, they have been in contact." Severus kept his head low. He was never without a headache these days. The castle was constantly screaming at him, hating him and berating him for the torture inflicted upon her students. The alarms went off all day, everyday and Severus was now painfully aware of why Dumbledore spent ninety percent of the year Umbridge was teaching in his office. It was the only room in the castle where the volume of the alarms could be turned down.
"Albus. I am well aware of the evil I have done and the evil I have wanted to do. In my many years of life I feel that seducing your golden wonder boy was not the worst thing I have, nor is it the worse thing I will ever do. However, falling in love with that insufferable brat is by far the most idiotic, moronic, imbecilic thing I have ever done. I will regret it until the day that I die, this you can be sure." He sneered as he sat in the chair, begging the castle to turn the alarms down just a bit more, just so that maybe tonight, for the first night in weeks, he could sleep without using a drought. He massaged his temples and took off his outer robe, leaving him exposed in a sharp white button down shirt and black trousers.
"Severus, my dear boy. I love you as I would love a self-exiled son because that is what you are to me. I love Harry as I would a grandson but this does not mean I will not allow your bond. I believe it is something to be embraced, child. Something that you will find to lighten the load on your soul." Severus gave a raspy disbelieving chuckle at the old mans words. His soul was as black as the robes he donned everyday.
Except: he no longer wore only black. He found his mourning interrupted one lonely evening in Muggle london before the start of term when a dream of a certain young man started to corrupt his sleep. He found himself wearing white beneath his mourning robes, disrupting his entire black wardrobe. The same he had been wearing since the day Lily died.
"Severus. Go back to him. You have only spent one night in each others arms, not even him knowing it was you, but you formed something strong that night Severus. Something irreplaceable that neither you nor the boy would want to give up. If you listen, you will hear him." And with those parting words Dumbledore left his portrait. He was probably traveling to the secret room where he kept a portrait of his love, Gillert. Or to his sister's portrait in Aberforth's inn. Severus found he didn't care. But he did find himself pondering. The words were cryptic but in a world of magic Severus found himself pessimistic rather than sceptical. And so, he closed his eyes and reclined the muggle chair Albus insisted on having in the room, though it was glamoured to look stiff and uninviting.
Severus took a deep breath and attempted to ignore the blaring alarms. He cleared his mind and allowed his occlumency shields to open slightly. What he could hear in his mind was astounding. He could hear children singing. Voices as young as eight to eighteen rang in his ear. He listened. Christmas Canon was a song he wished the Wizarding World would embrace. The song was ending however and and before the start of I'll Be Home for Christmas, he could hear a strong young male voice talking.
"When the stranger started coaxing me into a drink I was lulled into something. I don't know what to be honest, but when I entered his bed I didn't know what I was getting into. And now I have this wonderful burden. This love that I never knew I could have but I want it. Hermione tells me that I still have almost two years to go, but I feel pressure and stress, which could ruin this opportunity. It may never come again. I want to keep this thing going strong." And then the voice said something shocking. "God, if you can hear me or if you go by a different name. Please, bless me." Severus' eyes snapped open and he rocketed from the chair. He grabbed not his cloak but a jacket he often wore when he was going into the muggle world. He ran from the office, placing a black hat, gloves and scarf around his person. His vision tunnelled and his footsteps echoed loudly in his ears as he raced through the silent halls. He knew where the voice was, he knew who the voice was and he needed to be there for the voice. His boots broke the pristine snow covered landscape of Hogwarts as he sprinted across the lawn and apparated the instant he left the front gates. He never noticed how, for just a moment, the wards stopped screaming.
~~Christmas Eve, 1997, Muggle London~~
The choir voices stopped as a tall man, impossibly tall it seemed to the tiny children, walked into the hall. Initially, they believed the man to be one of their soloists, whom was over an hour late at this point. The children filled in for the solo parts but it did not have the same effect. The man with chin length black hair and a hooked nose glared at them and in unison they gasped. The choir director, a young woman who looked rather kind, turned around and saw him. He attempted to look friendly, but he was not a friendly man. "Now, now children. From the top!" She cheered in a happy voice. She tapped her little metal stick against her podium and the children starting singing Adeste Fideles. He could see older children, teenagers by the looks of them, sitting in the very front of the cathedral. But he was not looking for children, he was looking for a young man with black hair, blazing virid eyes and the weight of the world on his shoulders.
His footsteps echoed loudly in his ears even above the voices of the softly singing choir girls and the fervered whispers of tittering teenagers. He slowed his pace and stared at the tousled hair of the young man. He was dressed in a thin spring coat and torn jeans. His trainers had a hole in the sole revealing a bare foot. He looked more pauper than savior and Severus remembered how badly dressed the boy was even in September. He felt an ache in his heart. He sat directly behind the young man and closed his eyes, listening to the near silent prayers of a man who felt utterly hopeless.
"I won't survive this. I won't live a day past eighteen and I'm scared. I'm scared for this gift that I have been given and I am scared because of the love that I feel for a man who won't look at me without repulsion in his eyes. I feel nothing except panic and I have no hope of a future. Two years is what she said, I won't live to see June. Im shocked that I lasted this long." Harry's voice faded from his mind but instead he picked up on the singing. Harry was listening to the music. Then entire choir was once again behind the altar and on the balcony singing The First Nowell. Severus opened his eyes and stared and the young man in front of him. He could see his hair shift lightly by a magical breeze and bright white light was flickering from his hands, creating the illusion of a candle. To any muggle observer, it simply appeared that he was grasping and praying on a thin white and green teacup candle. Severus shook his head in awe. The man in front of him was astounding. Severus found himself longing to touch the man but that would be unwise. He was too far gone. His meditation was too deep. So Severus allowed himself to be pulled back into his mind and he listened to the young man confess his love to a gift that Severus had bestowed upon him one fateful September night.
"The man I was with. Please forgive me. Though a sin it may be, I love him. Well. No. I'm a liar. I do not love the man I slept with. I love the man I pretended I was sleeping with. I can't live without him yet here I am. Sitting in a church, at damn near ten o'clock at night praying to a God that I hope exists, asking said god to bless a man who hates me. To bless a man my magic is convinced has given me a gift. This life, its more than I know what to do with. I don't know how to act, how to talk. I am plagued by evils in my mind from the blasted locket and yet here I am, wearing it because Hermione can't. But she thinks the evil, though it doesn't affect me will affect my gift. I pray that you bless me to be free from these evils. I pray that you bless me. But I pray that you also bless Severus Snape. Bless his soul and please keep evil from him for he is surrounded by it. And I pray that you bless him with my love, because it may be the only thing keeping me and my gift alive. Love for a man I pretended to sleep with three months ago. God bless me and please forgive me." Harry's voice went silent again and he did not speak for a long time. The choir sang one last song, a song that filled Harry's soul with hope and allowed him to feel like the worship did not fall on deaf ears. Soon the front of the cathedral was filled with hundreds of parents as the exceptionally large choir finished up their practice.
Severus snuck up to the front and tapped the female director on the shoulder. "Excuse me miss." She turned around and held in her gasp of surprise. From far away she couldn't tell who the intimidating man was but she shook in fear seeing him in a muggle church surrounded by muggles.
"Please," she whispered frightfully "they're only children."
"I am not here to harm the children madam. I am not here because of the Dark Lord that these families know nothing about and I am not here to ruin your holiday. The childrens voices were beautiful. You have tutored them well. I ask that you please leave the music box you were using earlier on. Any music will do, I simply ask that you leave it running. For the man in the back of the church." The young witch, in her late twenties stared at him in fear and shock. She peered around Severus' chest, for the top of her head did not even reach his shoulder and looked at the young wizard, praying on a magical flickering candle. She was shocked to realized he had been praying for nearly the entire two hour practice session. "Music sooths the soul madam, and that man needs music tonight of all nights." She was frozen with fear and instead of speaking she nodded her head and turned to put in a CD from the previous years Christmas concert. She hoped the same voices would sooth the evil from the death eater scum who dared to pray in a muggle church.
She watched Severus walk back to the pew and instead of sitting behind the bowed head, he sat beside it, silently guarding the man who needed the music. As she passed by them, next to her husband who directed the boys choir and saw the look in the eyes of one of the most feared men in the wizarding world her heart couldn't help softening. He looked at other black haired man like her husband looked at her. "Merry Christmas, Sir." She said quietly.
He placed his hand to his lips but smiled gently and nodded at her and her muggle husband. Severus vowed to be here tomorrow and listen to the lovely voices of the children again.
When the church was empty Severus could tell the difference between the live voices of the children and the music box that played the CD. Severus sat in silence, no longer listening to the prayers of the man beside him but instead he mulled over his own thoughts.
In September, the lust that Severus felt for the man beside him became a little too much to bare. He got a rather attractive looking muggle drunk and stole a handful of hair from his scalp. He used his stores of polyjuice potion and successfully seduced the savior of the wizarding world into his bed. They were together for hours, reveling in each others company. And to Severus' immense pleasure, alcohol made the potion almost bearable to consume. When Harry finally fell asleep and Severus' lust only slightly sated, he slipped into the night leaving a brief note to the young man 'I had fun. I hope to see you again, though I doubt I ever will.'
Severus had an inclination that he was Harry's first and listening to the man's prayers earlier may have fortified the notion. Severus, though never a religious man, sent up a silent prayer that he would live through this blasted war and be Harry's only.
The CD stopped and Severus used the smallest bit of magic to make it play again, but the use of his wand still startled the man beside him. Harry shot up and his eyes opened. Fear, sorrow, hope and so many other emotions were being screamed from those eyes. Such a complicated color, the green of the boys eyes. And Severus fell more and more in love every time his coal black eyes met those of young Harry Potter.
Neither man moved for what seemed like ages. Finally, Severus broke the tension. "I guess I forgot my polyjuice potion tonight Harry. But I am happy to see you again." His voice was deep and thick with trepidation. Even Severus himself could barely identify what he was feeling. He expected Harry to jump to his feet, run or hex him. He expected the sickly smaragdine of the killing curse to whip into him and end his life but nothing of the sort happened. He turned his head to look at Harry again and saw only hope in those eyes. Hope and amazingly enough, love and perhaps devotion. But the words that came out of Harry's mouth floored Severus and shook him to his core.
"God is real." His voice was a soft whisper. Severus barely made it out but he was so shocked. Harry thought God brought him here? Severus grew mad. God did nothing of the sort, Severus heard the poor boy praying. Severus had answered the tortured cries of Harry Potter's soul, not some spirit in the sky! Severus heard Harry's prayers, not God. And then the anger fled him. Severus heard the boy-man- praying. A bond had formed between the two, during a whim one night stand and thus Severus had heard the man praying.
Maybe God was real. But if God wasn't real, then magic was certainly sentient and cared for all of her creatures in which case, he would just call magic God and worship her everyday. Severus smiled. "Perhaps. Perhaps not. In any case, the music is beautiful." He sat back in their pew and looked at the lone music box on a lone chair in front of the altar.
Harry nodded his head in agreement and also sat back. He too stared that the music box. But he flinched when cold, long fingers grasped his hand. He didn't look at Severus because Severus wasn't looking at him. He let the warm feeling of love fill him up again. He listened to the music and he let the music fill him up. He stayed there, on christmas eve in silence, holding hands tenderly with Severus Snape. He had finally found paradise in a cathedral on a cold winter night in muggle london.
~fin~
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