Disclaimer : Still hers. Ah well...

A/N : Written for Devilpops's birthday. Happy many returns on LJ, sweetheart, 'cause we miss you there !

Four Beginnings

1. Goo-between

The day had been evening and evening on since breakfast, a day of bad moods and fallen skies. Halloween gone and done, Christmas yet a blur in the calendar.

And in the meantime, the War.

Even in the dungeons, they could hear the rain dusting the castle roofs. There were just enough candles floating above their eyes to pick up a coppery gleam here and there across the silent room. Harry sliced, ground, cut, yawned. Time stretched on like the gluey content in his cauldron and as he coaxed his spatula onward, he wondered if he would be game enough to push his broom against the thickening rain later on. It sounded as if it would not hear of stopping, and Harry thought that the War might be like the rain, a thing of on and on, and his hand became slower above the viscous horror in the cauldron, and...

And his eyes grew wide. His cauldron had just twitched its ears at him as if in disapproval. Harry froze in unbelief. The cauldron's right ear wriggled again and Harry looked up in time to see the Potions Master's mouth twitch in unison as the man looked straight at him.

Silence filled the room again.

'Hey,' Ron said, nudging him. 'Sounds like the rain has stopped !'

2. Wordless

They leave and return and don't return, so that Harry's sleeping partners change as in a game of musical chairs, and no fault of his.

Once again, the Great Hall has been turned into a dormitory. They gather there at night, the former teachers and their charges, where the warding spells offer the promise of a quiet night though the promise is seldom fulfilled. No fault of theirs.

In the morning they dress and fight outside the confines of Hogwarts. Then some of them come back. There's not much sound in the Great Hall now that Albus Dumbledore's words no longer feed the void. A few muttered cleaning spells from those too tired to fetch the basins of water left at the entrance. They lie, they rise.

Sometimes they notice that the hair on the next pillow has changed colour, or that the pillow is empty.

The faint smell of blood in the room is like a red thread in a red tapestry : it cannot be spotted after a while.

HP - SS

Severus lies awake, listening to the breathing on his side, knowing why Potter's other neighbour does not stir though he or she is probably awake, too.

Anyone would hold the Champion Boy in their arms after he had been wounded. But who will hold him after his first kill ? And a perfect kill it was. It made their day, as the saying goes, granting them one more night in their stone sanctuary. But now Harry Potter breathes as if he had a dragon sitting on his chest and Severus Snape wishes he would bloody well stop.

He winces at his own unspoken words and rolls on his side, raising himself upon his elbow. Harry's breathing comes to a hitch. Severus throws an arm out and grabs the boy's hand. It's not a nice touch, but Harry clings to it as to dear life. Severus waits patiently, then gradually releases the clutch as Harry's breathing evens out.

HP - SS

Harry goes to sleep. Severus doesn't.

HP - SS

The next night, Harry is very careful to breathe normally.

He could have spared the effort : Severus, who is asleep, does not care. Nor does he take care where his arm lands when a dream chases it over the side of the mattress and onto the next pallet. A pale arm with a dark mark, flailing about until another hand catches hold of it and pulls Severus out of the dream.

Severus wakes to find that Potter is blowing on the Mark, softly, with lips that pucker but do not touch. Severus tenses under the breath. What does the boy think he's doing ? An awkward, helpless move, a move that will do no good.

A wise, caring gesture — where can a motherless boy have learnt it ?

Dark eyes flick to green eyes in the dark. Then Severus lets the air out of his lungs too, slowly, as if he was being born in reverse.

HP - SS

Which he is, in a way.

HP - SS

They are cautious enough to keep a few layers of wool between skin and skin, not to mention the sweat and dirt that no cleansing charm can entirely purge.

So they don't have to wonder where the warmth comes from as they fight night together, allied once more. Sometimes, they win and sleep defeats them. Sometimes they lose and sit up huddled; wordless; and look at the hard floor with its sum of prostrate bodies, like a rehearsal of the battlefield.

HP - SS

One morning, Harry releases sleep early enough to find a pale face bending over his and a full-dressed man clutching his own arm as if all the pain in the world had taken shelter there.

Harry rises from his warbed and puts his arms around the man, standing.

The kiss is firm and awkward; the kiss has a taste of dawn, fear and committment. Their feet sway a little on the cold slabs. Snape is out to take, then finds by Harry's moans that the boy has made it to the receiving end.

He shrugs. And gives.

His final gift, however, is to break the hug quickly so that Harry will feel how urgent, how vitally important it is to take it up... later...

Snape looks at Harry in silence and turns to go. Then he halts. Steps back, catches the boy's face between his hands and lowers his close enough to prevent anybody else from hearing if they happen to be awake.

What he says is : 'I'll be here when you speak the words.'

And he will.

3. My greasy Valentine

'The production of an Enervating Draught requires time, skill and such concentration as you bunch of addle-heads are clearly unable to provide. In your feeble attempts to ape its composition, take care to add the ingredients in the following order : ground moonstone, essence of ginger, dandelion roots, hellebore stems and accio fancy purple card on Potter's desk.'

'Sir, no, sir, I...'

'Twenty points from Gryffindor and I'll see you after class to discuss your detention. I do not tolerate Valentine writing in my class, Mr Potter, let alone verse Valentine writing. Only a moronic brain like yours would understand the word « composition » in such a... literal sense. Let us hear what it has brewed so far.'

In the black burn of your gaze I'll dive

And die, my love, and rise again, and live

To hear your words damn me all day long...

'Hm. Perhaps Mrs Pomfrey ought to get you an appointment with an earwizard, Potter. In case you hadn't noticed, « live » and « dive » do not sound remotely alike.'

'They're called eye-rhymes, professor. And you really don't want to read what comes next.'

'Fifty points for effrontery. You are merely whetting my appetite, boy. We all want to know who the black-eyed beauty is, don't we, class ? An Asian beauty, perhaps ?'

... To hear your words damn me all day long

And lick that voice of yours moist and strong.

'Dark eyes, deep voice, cruel lady. I'm beginning to fancy Madam Pince as a second choice.'

'Every man to his taste, sir.'

'Two hundred points.'

Gee, I drool over you like an early dotard,

You lean mean ugly grea...

'Professor ?'

'...'

'Merlin, he's hyperventilating!'

'It's all your fault, Potter — someone fetch Pomfrey, quick !'

'What in fuck's name did you write, mate? Can I accio the card back ?'

'I...'

'Professor !'

'We'll forget about those points, Potter — quiet, Malfoy ! — but I definitely want to see you after class.'

4. Last item on the list

Only a true-born sadist could have invented faculty meetings, Severus thought drowsily as the Headmaster's voice droned on in the late afternoon haze. Even Voldemort's little get-togethers were less agonizing in comparison, and there had been wine unlimited rather than this soppy mess Albus was fond of calling « herbal drink ». He scowled at his cup, fighting the temptation to transfigure it into a mug of steaming rhum. They were half-way into February and he felt a draught against his neck.

'... very well then, if Pomona agrees to supervise the first Hogsmead week-end and Filius the second one, then we're set till Christmas. Now there's just one last detail to be seen to...'

Praise Merlin, they had come at last to that Eldorado of staff meetings, that utopic, hoped-for, prayed-for land of promise — the Last Item On the List.

'... and that is the small matter of Severus and Harry's first dinner date.'

Snape's head jerked up painfully. Dammit, he'd done it again. He had gone to sleep during a meeting and his clever brain, furious to be deserted by its rightful owner, had castigated him with a dream in which he and Potter were being set up for a blind date. Swiftly massaging his neck, he cast a cautious look around but no one seemed to have caught him red-handed. Albus, deferent as ever, was turning to the woman on his right as she pushed her glasses up on her nose and checked her notes.

« 'mph. » Minerva McGonagall's delicate throat-rasping could have graced a French etiquette book. 'Well, after careful consideration of the local eateries, I've booked them a table at a small Italian place called Prospero's in Diagon Alley. It's out of the way of the big shops and according to my sources, it serves healthy, vegetarian food in appropriate quantities. Pomona then kindly agreed to compose the menu.'

« Wait a second... »

But Pomona Sprout had launched enthusiastically into speech and Severus desisted, kneading his neck with a vengeance. No one had ever beaten Sprout to the talking post when it came to discussing vegetables, as years of compulsory chit-chat at the High Table had taught him.

'Of course it is essential that they should eat fresh products, Headmaster, and those mediteranean herbs are full of aphrodisiac virtues. Take oregano, and thyme, and, oh, we must not forget sage. Sage will do Severus a lot of good, he's been a bit peaky these days.'

Not a dream, then. A hallucination. What was the last potion he had been brewing, minutes before they gathered ? Those newts' eyes had looked a bit bleary at the time. A case of slight intoxication, perhaps ?

'I'm not...'

'Excessive confinement, mark my words.' Hooch's strong contralto boomed up on his left. 'The man needs a dose of physical exercize. Did you book them a room upstairs as I said, Minnie ?'

'Has anyone noticed that I'm actually sitting at this table?' Severus's nerve ends were beginning to fail him: he felt as if he had tumbled into one of those quaint surrealistic films he had been shown in Muggle Studies class back in the late 70es.

Trelawney leant forward and patted his wrist softly. She spoke in that husky drawl of hers that always left him with the impression that she was recovering from a severe bout of flu. 'I predict a delectable evening, followed by an exquisite morning-after.'

That settled it. His regular complaint that staff meetings bored him to death had been heard by some mischievious deity and he was picking up the reward of his sins. Hell was going to be one everlasting discussion with everyone hurling insane suggestions across the table.

'I'm not having a morning-after with Potter ! I'm not having anything to do with Potter ! Lilith's tits, have you all gone stark staring raving mad ?'

'Come, my dear boy, you're not fooling anyone in this room.' (Albus raised a stern benevolent eyebrow, and the old trick silenced him for the next fifteen seconds.) 'Now let me check. Location has been taken care of; wine, ditto; vitamins, ditto. Musical atmosphere?'

'That was me, Headmaster!' Flitwick's sharp little voice rose to an excited treble. 'I regret to say that the Holyhead Harpists were a bit above our budget estimation, but I got them Veelas' Velvet Violins for a bargain price.'

'Oh, well done, Filius!'

Severus's fist crashed on the table, sending parchments levitating to and fro with the force of his ire.

'I may be dead and damned, but I'm not goint to let you bully me into some ectoplasmic nightmare of a romance, damn you ! I loathe Potter. I loathe violins. I abominate sage. And just so you know for my next punishment, Italian wines give me gas.'

The ominous silence that followed this last statement was broken by a slight tinkle at the window-panes. At a flick of Dumbledore's wrist they flew open and Harry Potter, Hogwarts's Junior Flying Instructor, hovered at the window sill with tousled hair, flushed cheeks and radiating green eyes. Snape blinked. Potter was gazing straight at him, and he looked for all the world like a first-year student who'd managed to brew hope, bottle bliss and stopper Christmas, Easter and life eternal at first try.

'Sorry to barge in and all, an eager young voice said, 'but I'm flying to the restaurant right after practice and I forgot to check the time with Professor McGonagall.'

'Eight sharp, Potter, and mind you don't forget your tie. It's a small place, but as neat and decent as can be.'

'I won't forget.' Potter did a smart turnover without breaking a single pane and prepared to leave. Looking over his shoulder, he yelled 'I'm so looking forward to this, Professor !' before careening off on a rush of cold wind.

Dumbledore hastened to close the window and silence once again filled the room.

'What...' Severus found he too had to clear his throat. 'What was that wine again ?'

'White Moscato frizzante, Severus.' Pomona's voice was hushed and subdued.

'Might as well order a troll's bladder straightaway. I want Pinot Grigio 1967, or the deal is off.'

'You're on.' Dumbledore had stood up and was gathering the errant parchments. 'An excellent choice, my dear boy, if I may say so. A young vintage, sweet and tonic, won't need to rest much before consumption. I trust you'll have a memorable evening. Meeting's over !'

FINIS

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