PART ELEVEN – Farewells"It's done," Harry said, collapsing onto his bed. "The last Horcrux is gone."
"The Headmaster?" Snape questioned from where he stood in the doorway after following a shell-shocked looking Harry in from the front door of their quarters. His voice did not contain as much hope, even false hope, as he'd initially expected it to.
Harry shook his head. "Gone." Even had the word not conveyed exactly how Harry felt about what had happened, one look at his eyes would have done so. They looked… well, dead. He would do anything Harry asked him – short of that one thing that they both most wanted, Snape amended – to put the spark that had appeared in them in the last few years back where it belonged. He was meant to be the permanently damaged goods in their relationship, whatever that relationship turned out to be. Harry, for all that he should have been shattered a thousand times over by what life had repeatedly thrown his way, had somehow come out remarkably unscathed until now. That was how it should always have been.
"I'll have to go soon. To face Voldemort." For once, Snape didn't order Harry not to say the name. There really wasn't much point in such caution when Harry was about to go and purposely challenge the Dark Lord in next to no time at all. "I'll have to fight him before he realises what's been done; that he has no Horcruxes left," Harry added.
"Fine," Snape said shortly. "We'll go tomorrow. Not now – you need to get some sleep first. You won't be any good in battle if you're not alert enough to think of what curse you should be throwing."
"I don't want you to come with me," Harry mumbled into his pillow. Snape just barely made out the words, but he was sure he wasn't mistaken.
"I'll be there whether you want me to be or not," Snape said. "The whole Order will be there for backup."
Harry shook his head. "It has to be done by just me. The rest of you will just be in unnecessary danger."
"Oh, and who will capture the Death Eaters when you win?"
Both of them silently noted the use of the word 'when' rather than 'if'.
"I'll notify the Aurors to wait for my contact, so that they're ready," Harry said, shrugging as well as he could while lying down in that position.
"And what if you kill the Dark Lord only to be defeated yourself by his remaining loyal servants?"
Harry shrugged again. "That would be a bit unlucky, wouldn't it? I'll have to watch out for that."
Snape gritted his teeth. "Fine. We'll discuss this in the morning."
By this, of course, he meant that when morning came, he would leave the school with Harry, regardless of what the boy wanted. He was fairly certain that Harry understood that he meant exactly that, but he said nothing to contradict Snape's solution to the problem.
"Right," Harry replied, and Snape could tell that he wasn't fooled in the slightest. However, they were both ready to let it go. For now, at least.
"I want you to make love to me tonight," Harry announced suddenly, sitting up so that he was balanced on the edge of the bed instead of sprawled artlessly across it.
Snape snorted. "I have told you no literally hundreds of times. Tonight is no different. And 'making love'?" Snape's face clearly conveyed his distaste for the sappy term.
Harry scowled. "Make love, have sex, fuck, screw like rabbits, whatever. I don't care what you want to call it, I just want to do it, already. And tonight is different. Of course it is. You know it is."
Snape raised an eyebrow. "I see no difference. You are no older or wiser than you were last time you asked – which was yesterday, if I recall correctly. You are still my student, regardless of whether you're technically a Hogwarts student or not. You will still have another hundred opportunities to pester me with that same question before you finally become sick of it and rush out to shag a girl your own age, with whom you will settle down and have a family and live happily ever after. Or before you have what the papers will undoubtedly call a 'whirlwind affair', or something equally disgusting, with some brainless pin-up Quidditch player, if other males really are the way you choose to go." The sarcasm in his voice couldn't have even been carved with a knife, it was so thick.
"I don't want some pin-up boy, either. You know that. And I could be dead by this time tomorrow!" Harry retorted. "I think that's a little different to 'usual'."
"Not really," Snape returned smoothly. "Every one of us could die at any second, if you truly want to get philosophical about it. You are no more likely to die tomorrow than at any other time in your life."
Harry snorted his disbelief, but wisely kept his mouth shut, for Snape was on a roll.
"You will not die tomorrow. I can almost guarantee it. The Dark Lord will not be expecting you, or at least not expecting someone who is powerful enough in his magic to challenge him. You will catch him off guard and you will defeat him."
"Well, for luck, then?" Harry wheedled. "'Almost guaranteeing' leaves a little room for doubt, doesn't it? Come on, just do it. Just to make sure I do get back all right, yeah?"
Snape looked unimpressed, but then he eventually sighed. "I will make you a deal. You know that I never usually make deals of any sort, so this is certainly a momentous occasion and I hope you give it the proper appreciation it deserves."
Harry looked attentive, at least. Good, Snape thought. He had little doubt that Harry wouldn't want to miss a word of this.
Snape continued, "When you defeat the Dark Lord and we – the two of us, because I'll be right there with you – return back here victorious, I will fuck you into the mattress. Or the wall. Or over the desk. Take your pick of locations, really. By then, you'll no longer be my student, because the task I've been training you for will be complete, so you'll finally get your own way. As if you don't usually, you spoiled brat."
Harry looked wide-eyed. Eventually he laughed.
"So, wait, all I had to do to get you to sleep with me was kill Voldemort?"
Snape winced at the name. There might be little use in preventing Harry from saying it at this stage, but that didn't mean it made Snape comfortable.
Harry's laughter rose in volume until Snape feared that he had suddenly and unexpectedly gone insane. What poor timing, he thought to himself, bemused by Harry's behaviour. Just when the wizarding world had some chance of being freed from the Dark Lord's rein, their boy hero falls off the rails. Well, Snape thought, it would serve the lot of them (himself included) right for placing such a large burden on someone so young.
"If I'd known that," Harry finally breathed through amused gasps, "I'd have spent the time I used trying to persuade you to sleep with me on finding the Horcruxes and getting the job done instead."
"You should have done that anyway," Snape admonished. However, he could not find it in himself to truly be all that stern with Harry. He was legally and mentally an adult now. It wasn't up to Snape to discipline him and keep him in line any longer. Thank Merlin.
Harry shrugged, still chuckling slightly. "Well, you know teenagers. All hormones. You really shouldn't have expected much better."
"I'll remember that the next time I decide to train a boy to defeat a Dark Wizard for seven years and then consider having sex with him at the end of it all," Snape said sardonically.
Harry snorted. "You'd better not. I'd kill him." His voice was beginning to sound even more tired. Harry manoeuvred himself on the bed so that his head lay on the pillow.
"And doom the wizarding world?" Snape goaded.
"Damn right I would. They can look out for themselves next time. After tomorrow, I'm done."
Severus wondered just how serious Harry was about that statement. Perhaps it was just a continuation of the joke or the tired ramblings of a nervous young man, but Snape still had the feeling that he meant exactly what he'd said.
"Well then," Snape said, "let's just get you through tomorrow in one piece and you'll never have to worry about the wizarding world again. Get some sleep, Harry."
Harry muttered unintelligibly, rolling himself into a more comfortable position. Severus watched him for a few moments more before quietly vacating the room to seek out some sleep for himself.
He just hoped he could shut out his racing nerves long enough to slip into unconsciousness as easily as Harry apparently could.