Curse of anger:
October 31st, Halloween. The day they died. Harry had always wondered why Voldemort chose today of all days to turn his life upside down. There was no one to answer, though. The Dark Lord was ended, and Harry Potter was a decorated Auror. Rumors had already begun to spread that he was next in line for the Head of the department. If it was true, then it was a promotion he'd earned a hundred times over, nevermind his age and the number of senior Aurors he'd be leaping over. How many of them had single-handedly brought down the worst dark wizard since Morgana?
Harry kneeled in the mud in front of his parent's graves, the pouring rain soaking his clothes. "That's not fair," He muttered to the silent headstones. "I didn't defeat him alone. My friends helped. Even Snape helped, to an extent. I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't feel differently, had he died from Nagini's poison."
"How magnanimous of you, Potter."
The Gryffindor stood up, rounding on the dark Potions Master, wand already seated in his hand, ready to cast. He glowered at the sneering, sallow-skinned bastard. Ten years and a few pretty memories didn't erase six years of verbal torture, nevermind the sacrifices the man had made on his behalf. Snape scoffed at his raised wand.
"Are you going to hex me, Potter? Put that thing away."
Harry scowled, but he reseated his wand in it's holster. "What the hell are you doing here, Snivellus?"
Snape's face transformed remarkably as he stepped towards Harry. "Don't you ever call me by that foul name!" He hissed.
Harry scoffed now. "You're in no position to be giving orders, Snivellus." Snape moved forward again, and he looked ready to strike his tormentor. Harry knocked aside the older wizard's hands and fisted his own in the soaked fabric of the black robes. He noted with some chagrin that Snape was still more than a head taller, but neither of their sneers faltered as their bodies pressed closer.
"This is your fault!" Harry shouted up into the hooded black gaze. "They're dead because of you, and you dare to show up at their graves on the anniversary of their deaths?!"
Snape continued to sneer, but he said nothing.
"You have no idea the pain I've suffered because of your selfishness!" Harry screamed again over the roaring winds and pelting rain.
Snape still didn't answer, and Harry felt his patience (what little of it remained) snap like a dry twig. He acted without thought and kissed his former professor. Time stopped.
It was the curse of anger. You became impulsive, unpredictable even to yourself. That's what Harry told himself as he pressed his lips against the sneering mouth. And he might have even pulled away in the next moment, if he'd had the chance. But a deceptively strong hand pressed against the back of his head, pulling him closer. He was still angry, fury boiled in his veins like molten rock, but a darker feeling, a demonic passion, slowly overtook his senses as he pressed against the older wizard.
It was wrong. They were standing on his parents' graves, in the middle of a rain-soaked graveyard. It was the middle of the night, but anyone from the surrounding village could happen by. What the hell was he doing, kissing Snape anyway? Spy or not, he was the enemy, had declared himself such with his childish power-play during Harry's tenure as a student. So why couldn't Harry stop? More importantly, why didn't he want to?
After an eternity in their angry, passionate embrace, they both pulled away. Black and green searched each other uncertainly, brows still furrowed in mutual loathing. And then Snape was moving away, Harry's hands dislodging from his robes. He turned his back on the Auror, and Harry watched helplessly as Snape disapparated. Harry was once more alone in the graveyard, and he sunk to his knees atop his parents' graves. What had just happened?
-Break-
Harry thought he perhaps understood insanity after that fateful night at his parents' graves. Everywhere he went, he was certain to see Snape's black eyes staring out at him. His place in the Auror corps had him traveling to distant places in search of dark wizards to arrest, and he began to see Snape in every crowd, in every dark corner. The fathomless onyx gaze haunted his dreams and his waking hours like a nightmare that knew no end. It was impossible for him to be there, Snape was the Headmaster of Hogwarts; even in the summer months, the man had to have other things to do with his time. Still, Harry saw him.
Even more incomprehensible, Harry found he couldn't quantify his feelings about the spiteful older wizard. Each time he glimpsed those sallow features, knowing they weren't really there, his heart fluttered in his chest and his stomach flip-flopped. It was a feeling he was used to. He had felt these symptoms as soon as he had come to accept his utter loathing for the greasy git of Hogwarts' dungeons. But the things he felt now, so familiar, had become strange to him. It was no longer loathing that rocked his body with the rushing tidal wave of a deep-seeded ache. He yearned to see the man again, if only to ask what the Death Eater had done to him. Nothing was the same anymore.
"What do I do, Mum?" Harry asked his mother's headstone mournfully. "I can't erase him from my thoughts. The world is grey without him in my life, but there's still so much anger. Because of him, the only memories I have of you are of your spirit; the mirror, the resurrection stone…and your screams every time I go near a Dementor. And yet…I can't get his kiss out of my head. I yearn for the man I should despise. It isn't fair."
"Life isn't fair, Potter."
Harry started, rising from the damp earth to round on the Potions Master. A year of internal torture had taught him to keep his wand stowed. He glowered at Snape for daring to listen in on his one-sided conversation. Snape did not glower back. His face remained stoic as his hand slowly rose from his side, palm up in invitation. Harry stared at the hand distrustfully.
Did he dare take it? It would change everything. He could still feel his old rage boiling beneath the surface, but it was slowly being consumed by a need to be near the very man it was aimed at. Could they do this? Was it in them to set aside habit to form what Harry could only assume would be a very dysfunctional family of just they two? And that was really the question here. This was not something simple that Snape was asking for. His extended hand was a question of eternity together. Harry knew it, and a glance up to that stoic gaze said that Snape knew it, too.
Summoning his courage, Harry reached out and slid his hand into Snape's palm. An eternity of this, whatever it may come to be, had to be better than the cruel uncertainty he had been victim to for the last year. Snape folded their hands together and drew Harry against him into a deep kiss that spelled out the future in no uncertain terms. There would still be anger. They could not so easily forget that they once hated one another. But together, they would overcome the battles they had begun with that first kiss.
-Break-
Lily Potter sat above the world on a drifting cloud, staring down into the night below. She smiled down on her two favorite boys. The trials to come would be plenty, but she knew they could survive, so long as they remembered they had each other to lean on.
"Our Harry is so stubborn," She murmured endearingly.
James chuckled beside her, placing a gentle kiss on her neck. "I wonder where he might have gotten that."