Title: Scar Tissue
Author: Blackrosesfalling@yahoo.com
Rating: R for language (the f word goes into heavy rotation, whoo hoo),
angst and implied sexual m/m relationships.
This may be a little confusing, because it's told through flashbacks and
current time, but (hopefully) it shouldn't be too hard to get the gist.
Oh yeah :-) this is for Bri and Meixia who helped me write this fic
unwittingly, and most of all; this is for a great friend, and fellow
slasher, Messlyn, who's name I drew during a secret fan fiction Santa, and
who's favorite paring was the basis for this fic but I somewhat strayed
from that... (Don't hurt me!)
*****
It had been a cold, heartless autumn. The days were slowly melting and deteriorating into a harsh winter, and the sun had begun to disappear for long periods of time. Those were his darkest hours, spent alone and isolated.
It's been a long time since he has felt the wet relief of tears drying on his face. It's been a long time since he has cried.
He can't cry, because that would mean thinking about why, and that, simply just hurts too much.
No, instead Harry is numb, icy. And even worse, resigned. He hates himself more then he hates anything else, even the one who took his love away from him. He hates his skinny body, his perpetually messy hair and most of all he hates his hideous scar, which has cursed him to a lonely life. He is only 18.
Hatred, self or otherwise, is a sentiment that has made its manifestation inside of himself and it is with that same matter of fact attitude, that he knows it will not go away. It should be funny how things can quickly grab hold of your life and throw everything into an utter uproar. but it's not.
He is dirty and cold, trembling in an unmade bed. The fresh breeze moves like an invisible hand from an open window, penetrates the staleness of the room, and sends a well-creased wizard newspaper floating across the wooden floor.
The paper is two weeks old, and the headline is almost faded past identification. It reads 'Harry Potter's Lover Sacrifices Himself To Defeat Voldemort' and Harry sighs, burying his head under the covers, shivering as old sweat cools upon his body.
His eyes are tired yet they will not close, and when he tries to think about something, anything- like easing the sharp pain in his stomach, or perhaps answering the letters a sympathetic Hedwig brings- he can't. He can only think of the razor-sharp throbbing inside his heart. He can barely even remember when it wasn't there.
*****
It had been the very last night at Hogwarts during Harry's 7th year, the Gryffindors were all engaged in a loud farewell party and Fred and George kept giving him butterbeers that they had mixed with a mysterious substance from a silver flask.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ron, who looked immensely sad and out of place amid the cheerful celebrations. But Harry knew better then to try to talk to him, Ron had been pushing him away almost all year long, and Harry couldn't- didn't want to think about why. Their problems were so similar it was painful.
So instead he gulped down another butter beer, almost instantly feeling light headed. Fred and George were laughing wickedly now and the room was spinning wildly, and he could dimly feel his knees begin to buckle.
In the sweaty blur of laughing drunk bodies, Seamus had grabbed firm hold of his arm and was pulling him out of the Gryffindor common room, and out of the fat lady portrait, who eyed them warily.
"You look like you're about to puke Harry." Seamus said, surveying him cautiously, and Harry was clutching his head like a war was going on inside. "Do you want me to help you get to Madam Pumphrey?"
Harry wrenched his arm from Seamus.
"I'm fine. Just leave me alone," He slurred.
Seamus looked a little hurt, but backed off visibly and that was all fine to Harry. He looked as if he wanted to say something more, maybe about the penalties of heading down to the dungeons, but Harry didn't want to listen.
Harry turned around and left in the opposite direction of the Gryffindor's dorms, weaving slightly around through his poorly placed steps.
He didn't know where he was going, only where he hoped he would turn up.
*****
It was a little over 1 year after and it was Ron who finally broke down the door to Harry's shared apartment. A look of unsurprised disgust was on his pretty face as he pulled Harry, struggling, out of bed.
Harry fought viciously, but his slow, tired strength was simply no match for Ron's carefully thought out intention.
"Damnit Harry!" Ron hissed as Harry's teeth sank into his palm. He pulled it away quickly, surveying the insubstantial damage.
Harry flopped lifelessly back down onto the bed. Turning his back to Ron, in all hopes that whatever Ron had come here for would be forgotten, that it would just seem too much of a bother.
"Look at yourself Harry." Came Ron's voice, soft, reasoning. " You're a mess, this whole flat is mess. You need help."
Harry had to bite his tongue to barely restrain a furious 'Fuck you'.
Instead he turned back over, till he was facing Ron and twisted up in dirty sheets.
"What the hell do you care anyway? Do you know this is the first time you've shown an interest in me in a year?"
"Jesus Harry." Ron said with a released sigh. "I'm just trying to be there, be a friend."
"That would've been great- a year ago."
"Wait a minute- if I remember it was you, Harry, who put the distance between us 7th year. Couldn't handle the fact that someone else had put star shine in my eyes."
"Yeah well that someone happened to be Draco Malfoy." Comes Harry's answer, muffled, because he's burying his head into his pillow. Wishing his "company" would just get the hint and fucking leave.
"Like you have any right to be upset about that." A bitter voice whispered.
Awkward silence.
"Do you not even want to try and talk to me about this?" Ron's pleading voice drifted to Harry's ears.
"No." Flat response.
"Fine." Comes the one word response, harsh. Harry expects to hear Ron's retreating footsteps towards the door; perhaps even a loud door slam courtesy of the boiling anger Harry knows Ron has sweltering inside.
Instead he feels Ron's arms wrap around him, pulling him violently out of the bed. They thrash about, but to no avail, Harry knows Ron's hands have captured his wrists, so all Harry can do is attempt to slam his insignificant weight against Ron's. But Ron know it's hopeless, and so does he.
Harry sags in his arms, and Ron is moving, putting something on him- clothes. Harry doesn't fight anymore; the dizzying feeling of his blood rushing to his head is reason enough. He only compliantly lifts his arms to help Ron pull a soft jumper over his head.
Then Harry rests his hands on Ron's arms as he zips up Harry's jeans. Closing his eyes briefly to rid himself of vertigo.
The sensation of touching another person's skin, even for just an instant, conjures up a sweet memory, which lingers on Harry's mind like honey.
****
Candlelight. The soft glow hits Harry rather instantly and he's enveloped in warmness, closeness.
It's hard to believe that this memory isn't an old one, perhaps a month or two, and it's sweetness tortures Harry because the bitterness that it was followed by is only still too fresh on his mind.
But it's a loving torture, and it sustains him even as he watches it play out before him, knowing the loss that is to be suffered when this moment between two lovers ends.
Harry's lover is beautiful under candle glow, and it's a secret beauty, a dangerous handsome that borders on darker things. Mustn't think of dark, Harry quickly amends. Sweet. Sweeter things.
In this particular memory, Harry sees the long, silky strands of hair that are sticking sweetly to his lover's mouth. He is reaching forward and brushing them away, fingers gently lingering on a full bottom lip, and a rush of longing shoots shivers up his arm with the contact.
*****
It's just enough to bring him out of his reverie with a jolt. Harry and Ron are standing where the memory took place and with the sudden subtraction of it, the room is stiffer, and colder. There's pain in this room, the desperate need for tears to be shed, but no strength of will to actually carry the draining task out.
Alone, neither of them would survive it.
Ron is jamming shoes on Harry's feet rather unceremoniously; tying shoelaces in a violent blur and for the first time Harry realizes that he is getting him ready for something.
Then he is delicately putting on Harry's rather discarded glasses and the apartment flat comes into a sudden, and sharp focus for him rather quickly.
"I suppose you're taking me somewhere." Harry says, thinking, reassessing himself with his haphazard surroundings.
"Yeah. But it's a surprise." Ron replies and his words were meant to be light hearted, but they are dark and bitter, and that is of his own accord.
Minutes later Ron is locking the flat door behind them, and he is guiding Harry down the stairs and some long seconds later they are in the parking lot. The sun hurts Harry's eyes, and Ron in a tender gesture, overshadows the sun in front of Harry, and Harry, surprised and relieved, can think enough to close his fingers around the shiny, hot car door handle to open the passenger side to Ron's muggle car, and curls himself into the leather seat.
Now there is not a witch or wizard in any parts who does not know the muggle ways of life. It had become a part of survival by Harry's 6th year, all wizards had to disguise themselves in the magicless, colorless tapestry world of muggles. The death eaters had simply become too strong to do otherwise. That is why Harry and his lover had to move to poor, muggle apartments; they knew that they were being searched for. But they had made it home, and as he remembers it, his stomach tightens, and he looks out the windows as objects, houses, people, cars, colors blur behind them, grateful for the distraction.
Ron drives easily into the oncoming rows of traffic, and his little orange car is sputtering into action, leaving puffs of smoke in it's wake.
Looking out the car window, Harry is forced to see the world differently quite suddenly. It's abruptly more real to him, realer then it has ever been in the past few weeks then when Harry has been holed up in his apartment. He had almost forgotten that it had existed. He peers through the window forcing his eyes to focus.
He winces at his self-reflection mirrored through the glass window, his tussled black hair, bright green eyes that somehow seem artificially sane, and his ugly scar in plain view. Self-disgust has never been so poignant, as he painstakingly arranges his hair over it. The mark of his misery, the one defect that has ruined his life is, at this moment, too much to even bare.
The car is silent. It is the silence of two people immersed in their own lives, their own secrets. Possibly these two lives are at their last intersection, but the thought of thinking about anything but the past is too hard for Harry, and for Ron it is probably the same.
Harry watches the movement of Ron's car, uninterestedly watching the nondescript roads it takes them on, but Harry is too tired, too battle worn to give a fuck.
And before he knows it, he is thinking about life before this, all of this again, and that means he's thinking about him. Wrapping the memory tightly around his sensory deprived brain. There is a deep ache and an elated joy that comes with the thought, with that one fragment of a memory of that one person.
The joy is easy to think about, sacrilegious to his inner pain. He thinks longingly about the meaningless laughter that turned into serious, hot kisses. The sex that bordered efficiently on sweet pain and even sweeter pleasure. When they made love it was lazy, and good. And the mornings. Oh the mornings they shared, waking up together and there was no fucking Voldemort, no fucking war on the wizards. Just them. Just happiness.
But that happiness began to deteriorate. Suspicions had entered into their relationship and threatened to never leave. He started coming home later and later. Harry's scar had begun to hurt again. Yells, screaming at one another till Harry's throat was sore. He was pulling away from him and that was the worst thing of all. And still there's something even more horrible then that, but he will not let his mind venture any further.
Harry didn't even notice the noisy halt of Ron's car. It is Ron's practiced, professional, and toneless voice that makes him.
"We're here."
Harry looks out the window, making his eyes ignore the glare, and the images outside swiftly swirl into one thought. Graveyard. They are at a graveyard. It's a beautiful cemetery with weeping willows littered with gloriously beautiful golden and red leaves and those trees are to be the permanent mourners for the dead, but all of that doesn't sink in for Harry. Only that he knows where Ron has taken him, and why, just to damage him to the point of no repair.
Ron is getting out of the car, and his steps are tired, and the line of his shoulders is drawn and slouched. Harry can't even speak, can't even string a sentence of refusal together, as Ron opens the door and pulls him out.
Ron is dragging him and Harry is stunned and he's finally making words and he's saying no over and over again. But that doesn't stop Ron. His grip is firm and unrelenting, his actions have a purpose and there's nothing Harry can do.
He is dragging him along, past ancient tombs, past tearful angel statues, there is an unending trail of decayed flower petals, and the invisible reek of death is far too much for Harry's sanity.
Ron seems to know the spot they are destined for, and Harry would rather die then see where he is taking him to.
"No! Ron! Please no! No don't!" He is trying to break free, but Ron is harsh and wordless, tightlipped and remorseless.
Under a weeping willow lies a clean grave, a new white headstone. The words are stark and black against the maple autumn leaves that are divine debris in the expanse of dying grass. Severus Snape, it reads simply, and seeing those two words on that hard, unforgiving stone is enough to make Harry collapse.
He falls on to the grass, cradling the cool marble, pressing his face against it and he is crying, everything raw inside of him is being ripped open, set forth to bleed, and to infect. Ron watches this, his face revealing nothing, no fucking emotion whatsoever.
"Why, Ron, why did you bring me here?" Harry whimpers through his sobbing.
"Harry. God. Why do you always think everyone wants to hurt you?" Comes Ron's voice, it's sharp and unbothered by Harry's display of heartrending reaction.
"Because that's all everyone ever ends up doing. You, Severus." Harry is trying to stop crying, trying to stop the constant flow of tears that have wandered down his face leaving lucid, track marks as his fingers blindly trace the lettering on the cold stone. Numb, his fingers are so numb.
"Fuck Harry. You think Snape wanted to hurt you? He died for you Harry. He died because he loved you. He risked his life to fool the death eaters every day, for what? To protect you, you dumb git!"
"What do you know about love Ron? You think Draco fucking you a few times in our 7th year is love?" Harry yells equally heated, frustrated through his tears. The scar on his forehead is weighing his shoulders down, fuck, his whole body down, and the desire to lash out, to hurt something close- or someone- like Ron, that need has never been stronger.
"Screw you Harry." Ron says, and his face is pale, his eyes angry. He turns around and starts to walk away, the crackling of old golden and red leaves beneath his aged, scuffed boots sounding off like gunshots into the distance.
Harry doesn't need to watch him go, he's already seen another leave him, and that's too fucking much already. His head is burning, his fucking scar is throbbing and all he can do is lay his head down on to the cool, icy marble and cry.
The pain inside has reached an eruption point, but something has stopped it from igniting. It's warm arms encircling his cold, broken body and Harry knows then that Ron hasn't left him after all.
Ron is picking him up gently off the dying earth, embracing him fiercely, burning his eyes into Harry's wide ones. Harry sobs uncontrollably into his shoulder, standing there so close it is as if they are one body, the pain is still there but for some reason it is ebbing away.
It takes a minute for Harry to distinguish it, but Ron is speaking to him softly, whispering into his ear.
"You were wrong Harry." He says vehemently, squeezing Harry's hands for emphasis. "I do know what love is- because I know you."
*****
The memory comes to him suddenly and its instant effect on him is warm, liquefying and pleasant.
He is spending one of those mornings in bed with Snape, and it's a beautiful morning. Golden, glorious warmth shared between two bodies in bed.
Severus is touching him and the touch is sweet and unassuming. It's love. He is tracing Harry's lips with his fingers, and his eyes are teasing, and slowly morphing into something more serious as his long fingers glide up the slope of Harry's nose, over the elegant arch of his eyebrow, and gingerly touches Harry's scar, ever so gently. His dark eyes meet Harry's and it somehow cajoles a soft response out of him.
"I hate my scar." He says shyly after a moment. Catching Severus's hand with his.
"I know." Severus says gently. "But you shouldn't. It's the mark of healing. After great pain there is always healing." And Severus's mouth has found Harry's. Then they are holding each other and that memory fades off into warm oblivion.
*****
And Harry, standing there in the deserted and desolately beautiful graveyard with Ron, who is holding him so sweetly and tightly. Harry, for the first time understands what Severus was trying to tell him.
*****
It had been a cold, heartless autumn. The days were slowly melting and deteriorating into a harsh winter, and the sun had begun to disappear for long periods of time. Those were his darkest hours, spent alone and isolated.
It's been a long time since he has felt the wet relief of tears drying on his face. It's been a long time since he has cried.
He can't cry, because that would mean thinking about why, and that, simply just hurts too much.
No, instead Harry is numb, icy. And even worse, resigned. He hates himself more then he hates anything else, even the one who took his love away from him. He hates his skinny body, his perpetually messy hair and most of all he hates his hideous scar, which has cursed him to a lonely life. He is only 18.
Hatred, self or otherwise, is a sentiment that has made its manifestation inside of himself and it is with that same matter of fact attitude, that he knows it will not go away. It should be funny how things can quickly grab hold of your life and throw everything into an utter uproar. but it's not.
He is dirty and cold, trembling in an unmade bed. The fresh breeze moves like an invisible hand from an open window, penetrates the staleness of the room, and sends a well-creased wizard newspaper floating across the wooden floor.
The paper is two weeks old, and the headline is almost faded past identification. It reads 'Harry Potter's Lover Sacrifices Himself To Defeat Voldemort' and Harry sighs, burying his head under the covers, shivering as old sweat cools upon his body.
His eyes are tired yet they will not close, and when he tries to think about something, anything- like easing the sharp pain in his stomach, or perhaps answering the letters a sympathetic Hedwig brings- he can't. He can only think of the razor-sharp throbbing inside his heart. He can barely even remember when it wasn't there.
*****
It had been the very last night at Hogwarts during Harry's 7th year, the Gryffindors were all engaged in a loud farewell party and Fred and George kept giving him butterbeers that they had mixed with a mysterious substance from a silver flask.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ron, who looked immensely sad and out of place amid the cheerful celebrations. But Harry knew better then to try to talk to him, Ron had been pushing him away almost all year long, and Harry couldn't- didn't want to think about why. Their problems were so similar it was painful.
So instead he gulped down another butter beer, almost instantly feeling light headed. Fred and George were laughing wickedly now and the room was spinning wildly, and he could dimly feel his knees begin to buckle.
In the sweaty blur of laughing drunk bodies, Seamus had grabbed firm hold of his arm and was pulling him out of the Gryffindor common room, and out of the fat lady portrait, who eyed them warily.
"You look like you're about to puke Harry." Seamus said, surveying him cautiously, and Harry was clutching his head like a war was going on inside. "Do you want me to help you get to Madam Pumphrey?"
Harry wrenched his arm from Seamus.
"I'm fine. Just leave me alone," He slurred.
Seamus looked a little hurt, but backed off visibly and that was all fine to Harry. He looked as if he wanted to say something more, maybe about the penalties of heading down to the dungeons, but Harry didn't want to listen.
Harry turned around and left in the opposite direction of the Gryffindor's dorms, weaving slightly around through his poorly placed steps.
He didn't know where he was going, only where he hoped he would turn up.
*****
It was a little over 1 year after and it was Ron who finally broke down the door to Harry's shared apartment. A look of unsurprised disgust was on his pretty face as he pulled Harry, struggling, out of bed.
Harry fought viciously, but his slow, tired strength was simply no match for Ron's carefully thought out intention.
"Damnit Harry!" Ron hissed as Harry's teeth sank into his palm. He pulled it away quickly, surveying the insubstantial damage.
Harry flopped lifelessly back down onto the bed. Turning his back to Ron, in all hopes that whatever Ron had come here for would be forgotten, that it would just seem too much of a bother.
"Look at yourself Harry." Came Ron's voice, soft, reasoning. " You're a mess, this whole flat is mess. You need help."
Harry had to bite his tongue to barely restrain a furious 'Fuck you'.
Instead he turned back over, till he was facing Ron and twisted up in dirty sheets.
"What the hell do you care anyway? Do you know this is the first time you've shown an interest in me in a year?"
"Jesus Harry." Ron said with a released sigh. "I'm just trying to be there, be a friend."
"That would've been great- a year ago."
"Wait a minute- if I remember it was you, Harry, who put the distance between us 7th year. Couldn't handle the fact that someone else had put star shine in my eyes."
"Yeah well that someone happened to be Draco Malfoy." Comes Harry's answer, muffled, because he's burying his head into his pillow. Wishing his "company" would just get the hint and fucking leave.
"Like you have any right to be upset about that." A bitter voice whispered.
Awkward silence.
"Do you not even want to try and talk to me about this?" Ron's pleading voice drifted to Harry's ears.
"No." Flat response.
"Fine." Comes the one word response, harsh. Harry expects to hear Ron's retreating footsteps towards the door; perhaps even a loud door slam courtesy of the boiling anger Harry knows Ron has sweltering inside.
Instead he feels Ron's arms wrap around him, pulling him violently out of the bed. They thrash about, but to no avail, Harry knows Ron's hands have captured his wrists, so all Harry can do is attempt to slam his insignificant weight against Ron's. But Ron know it's hopeless, and so does he.
Harry sags in his arms, and Ron is moving, putting something on him- clothes. Harry doesn't fight anymore; the dizzying feeling of his blood rushing to his head is reason enough. He only compliantly lifts his arms to help Ron pull a soft jumper over his head.
Then Harry rests his hands on Ron's arms as he zips up Harry's jeans. Closing his eyes briefly to rid himself of vertigo.
The sensation of touching another person's skin, even for just an instant, conjures up a sweet memory, which lingers on Harry's mind like honey.
****
Candlelight. The soft glow hits Harry rather instantly and he's enveloped in warmness, closeness.
It's hard to believe that this memory isn't an old one, perhaps a month or two, and it's sweetness tortures Harry because the bitterness that it was followed by is only still too fresh on his mind.
But it's a loving torture, and it sustains him even as he watches it play out before him, knowing the loss that is to be suffered when this moment between two lovers ends.
Harry's lover is beautiful under candle glow, and it's a secret beauty, a dangerous handsome that borders on darker things. Mustn't think of dark, Harry quickly amends. Sweet. Sweeter things.
In this particular memory, Harry sees the long, silky strands of hair that are sticking sweetly to his lover's mouth. He is reaching forward and brushing them away, fingers gently lingering on a full bottom lip, and a rush of longing shoots shivers up his arm with the contact.
*****
It's just enough to bring him out of his reverie with a jolt. Harry and Ron are standing where the memory took place and with the sudden subtraction of it, the room is stiffer, and colder. There's pain in this room, the desperate need for tears to be shed, but no strength of will to actually carry the draining task out.
Alone, neither of them would survive it.
Ron is jamming shoes on Harry's feet rather unceremoniously; tying shoelaces in a violent blur and for the first time Harry realizes that he is getting him ready for something.
Then he is delicately putting on Harry's rather discarded glasses and the apartment flat comes into a sudden, and sharp focus for him rather quickly.
"I suppose you're taking me somewhere." Harry says, thinking, reassessing himself with his haphazard surroundings.
"Yeah. But it's a surprise." Ron replies and his words were meant to be light hearted, but they are dark and bitter, and that is of his own accord.
Minutes later Ron is locking the flat door behind them, and he is guiding Harry down the stairs and some long seconds later they are in the parking lot. The sun hurts Harry's eyes, and Ron in a tender gesture, overshadows the sun in front of Harry, and Harry, surprised and relieved, can think enough to close his fingers around the shiny, hot car door handle to open the passenger side to Ron's muggle car, and curls himself into the leather seat.
Now there is not a witch or wizard in any parts who does not know the muggle ways of life. It had become a part of survival by Harry's 6th year, all wizards had to disguise themselves in the magicless, colorless tapestry world of muggles. The death eaters had simply become too strong to do otherwise. That is why Harry and his lover had to move to poor, muggle apartments; they knew that they were being searched for. But they had made it home, and as he remembers it, his stomach tightens, and he looks out the windows as objects, houses, people, cars, colors blur behind them, grateful for the distraction.
Ron drives easily into the oncoming rows of traffic, and his little orange car is sputtering into action, leaving puffs of smoke in it's wake.
Looking out the car window, Harry is forced to see the world differently quite suddenly. It's abruptly more real to him, realer then it has ever been in the past few weeks then when Harry has been holed up in his apartment. He had almost forgotten that it had existed. He peers through the window forcing his eyes to focus.
He winces at his self-reflection mirrored through the glass window, his tussled black hair, bright green eyes that somehow seem artificially sane, and his ugly scar in plain view. Self-disgust has never been so poignant, as he painstakingly arranges his hair over it. The mark of his misery, the one defect that has ruined his life is, at this moment, too much to even bare.
The car is silent. It is the silence of two people immersed in their own lives, their own secrets. Possibly these two lives are at their last intersection, but the thought of thinking about anything but the past is too hard for Harry, and for Ron it is probably the same.
Harry watches the movement of Ron's car, uninterestedly watching the nondescript roads it takes them on, but Harry is too tired, too battle worn to give a fuck.
And before he knows it, he is thinking about life before this, all of this again, and that means he's thinking about him. Wrapping the memory tightly around his sensory deprived brain. There is a deep ache and an elated joy that comes with the thought, with that one fragment of a memory of that one person.
The joy is easy to think about, sacrilegious to his inner pain. He thinks longingly about the meaningless laughter that turned into serious, hot kisses. The sex that bordered efficiently on sweet pain and even sweeter pleasure. When they made love it was lazy, and good. And the mornings. Oh the mornings they shared, waking up together and there was no fucking Voldemort, no fucking war on the wizards. Just them. Just happiness.
But that happiness began to deteriorate. Suspicions had entered into their relationship and threatened to never leave. He started coming home later and later. Harry's scar had begun to hurt again. Yells, screaming at one another till Harry's throat was sore. He was pulling away from him and that was the worst thing of all. And still there's something even more horrible then that, but he will not let his mind venture any further.
Harry didn't even notice the noisy halt of Ron's car. It is Ron's practiced, professional, and toneless voice that makes him.
"We're here."
Harry looks out the window, making his eyes ignore the glare, and the images outside swiftly swirl into one thought. Graveyard. They are at a graveyard. It's a beautiful cemetery with weeping willows littered with gloriously beautiful golden and red leaves and those trees are to be the permanent mourners for the dead, but all of that doesn't sink in for Harry. Only that he knows where Ron has taken him, and why, just to damage him to the point of no repair.
Ron is getting out of the car, and his steps are tired, and the line of his shoulders is drawn and slouched. Harry can't even speak, can't even string a sentence of refusal together, as Ron opens the door and pulls him out.
Ron is dragging him and Harry is stunned and he's finally making words and he's saying no over and over again. But that doesn't stop Ron. His grip is firm and unrelenting, his actions have a purpose and there's nothing Harry can do.
He is dragging him along, past ancient tombs, past tearful angel statues, there is an unending trail of decayed flower petals, and the invisible reek of death is far too much for Harry's sanity.
Ron seems to know the spot they are destined for, and Harry would rather die then see where he is taking him to.
"No! Ron! Please no! No don't!" He is trying to break free, but Ron is harsh and wordless, tightlipped and remorseless.
Under a weeping willow lies a clean grave, a new white headstone. The words are stark and black against the maple autumn leaves that are divine debris in the expanse of dying grass. Severus Snape, it reads simply, and seeing those two words on that hard, unforgiving stone is enough to make Harry collapse.
He falls on to the grass, cradling the cool marble, pressing his face against it and he is crying, everything raw inside of him is being ripped open, set forth to bleed, and to infect. Ron watches this, his face revealing nothing, no fucking emotion whatsoever.
"Why, Ron, why did you bring me here?" Harry whimpers through his sobbing.
"Harry. God. Why do you always think everyone wants to hurt you?" Comes Ron's voice, it's sharp and unbothered by Harry's display of heartrending reaction.
"Because that's all everyone ever ends up doing. You, Severus." Harry is trying to stop crying, trying to stop the constant flow of tears that have wandered down his face leaving lucid, track marks as his fingers blindly trace the lettering on the cold stone. Numb, his fingers are so numb.
"Fuck Harry. You think Snape wanted to hurt you? He died for you Harry. He died because he loved you. He risked his life to fool the death eaters every day, for what? To protect you, you dumb git!"
"What do you know about love Ron? You think Draco fucking you a few times in our 7th year is love?" Harry yells equally heated, frustrated through his tears. The scar on his forehead is weighing his shoulders down, fuck, his whole body down, and the desire to lash out, to hurt something close- or someone- like Ron, that need has never been stronger.
"Screw you Harry." Ron says, and his face is pale, his eyes angry. He turns around and starts to walk away, the crackling of old golden and red leaves beneath his aged, scuffed boots sounding off like gunshots into the distance.
Harry doesn't need to watch him go, he's already seen another leave him, and that's too fucking much already. His head is burning, his fucking scar is throbbing and all he can do is lay his head down on to the cool, icy marble and cry.
The pain inside has reached an eruption point, but something has stopped it from igniting. It's warm arms encircling his cold, broken body and Harry knows then that Ron hasn't left him after all.
Ron is picking him up gently off the dying earth, embracing him fiercely, burning his eyes into Harry's wide ones. Harry sobs uncontrollably into his shoulder, standing there so close it is as if they are one body, the pain is still there but for some reason it is ebbing away.
It takes a minute for Harry to distinguish it, but Ron is speaking to him softly, whispering into his ear.
"You were wrong Harry." He says vehemently, squeezing Harry's hands for emphasis. "I do know what love is- because I know you."
*****
The memory comes to him suddenly and its instant effect on him is warm, liquefying and pleasant.
He is spending one of those mornings in bed with Snape, and it's a beautiful morning. Golden, glorious warmth shared between two bodies in bed.
Severus is touching him and the touch is sweet and unassuming. It's love. He is tracing Harry's lips with his fingers, and his eyes are teasing, and slowly morphing into something more serious as his long fingers glide up the slope of Harry's nose, over the elegant arch of his eyebrow, and gingerly touches Harry's scar, ever so gently. His dark eyes meet Harry's and it somehow cajoles a soft response out of him.
"I hate my scar." He says shyly after a moment. Catching Severus's hand with his.
"I know." Severus says gently. "But you shouldn't. It's the mark of healing. After great pain there is always healing." And Severus's mouth has found Harry's. Then they are holding each other and that memory fades off into warm oblivion.
*****
And Harry, standing there in the deserted and desolately beautiful graveyard with Ron, who is holding him so sweetly and tightly. Harry, for the first time understands what Severus was trying to tell him.