Chapter 21: Lets compare scars
Notes:
Yay! New chapter updates.
By the way, you're all wonderful!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Harry had been pulled into Dray's orbit, as if the space Dray now occupied in Harry's life had planetary mass, and Harry was helpless to its gravitational draw. She wouldn't resist the pull, even if she could.
The second time they return to the Chamber of Secrets, it's at Dray's tentative suggestion. This time, they reached the stone antechamber that held the giant statue of Salazars head, from whose mouth, Harry remembers with sickening clarity, the basilisk had sinuously slid, in her second year.
The basilisk corpse is the first thing Harry sees upon entering this antechamber, her heart rate almost doubling, even as she forcibly reminds herself that the great ugly snake is dead. Dray emits a squeak from behind her, and it's all Harry can do to hold back a laugh.
"Scared, Malfoy?" she uses Dray's surname because she knows it irritates her.
It has the desired effect, and Dray, who was strung tensely with fear, narrows her eyes almost imperceptibly, in what Harry knows to be annoyance; her ire eclipsing her fright. Dray's eyes move with rapidity, between Harry and the snake, and then she smirked. Here it comes, Harry thought. She almost groaned out loud.
"I'm- I'm petrified!" Dray widened her eyes in mock terror, and placed too much emphasis on the word 'Petrified.'
Dray made significant eyes at the snake, as she repeated herself. "/Petrified/, Harry."
Harry gave Dray an exaggerated eye-roll.
"Oh, come on." Dray said, and as Harry is about to tell Dray how not funny she is, Dray says: "Don't look so /stone-faced/, my sense of humour /rocks/."
And, unbidden, a laugh bubbles out of Harry. Dray looks immensely pleased with herself, and Harry sees to correct this, before an already insufferable Dray, gets an even bigger head.
"Yeah, it /rocks/ like a boulder in the great lake, Dray. It sinks to greater depths of awful each time you tell a joke."
Dray doesn't seem in any way affected by this, much to Harry's exasperated annoyance. "I don't believe you, Potter." She drawls, looking at her nails with an air of haughty indifference. "You laughed, ergo, I am *hilarious*."
Harry can't bring herself to wipe that look of smug satisfaction on Dray's face, so with another dimension-shifting eye-roll, she turns back to the basilisk.
Dray waxes lyrical about how impressive Harry is to have slain the gigantic beast "and in your second year!", and after blushing furiously, unable to meet Drays gaze for a good few minutes, Harry decides that if Dray gets a free pass on thinking her awful jokes are funny, then she deserves Dray's excessive praise. If she's entirely honest, Harry feels practically giddy with elation at her words.
"Don't go giving me a big head, Dray." Harry teased, looking directly at Dray, because she was all to intrigued to watch this once perpetually hateful, angry, arrogant face, flit through emotions. Dray with her walls down is endlessly fascinating – not that Harry would ever admit it. A strange look comes over Dray's face, one that Harry can't quite place. Dray's gaze too, is fixed on Harry, and Harry feels her face heating with the knowledge that all Dray's considerable attention is fixed on her.
When Dray drops her eyes, Harry feels strangely bereft.
Dray clears her throat awkwardly. "We, should ah – put a stasis charm on the basilisk." Dray says, as she regains her focus. "Uncle Sev would kill for any one the ingredients he could extract from this thing."
XXX
Over long distances, the connection Severus holds to Harry's mind is weakened even more than it has been of late. He only really notices her particularly strong emotions while she is far. The emotions that filter through when Harry is off with Dray are tinged with few noticeable flavours, the most frequent, and strong of which is happiness.
Happiness, Severus reminds himself with guilt, is an emotion Severus does not feel often from Harry while she shares his company.
There was another thing: Severus could swear he felt Harry's guilt through the bond. What could make his Bondmate feel guilty however, leaves him stumped.
Then again, perhaps he was misplacing his own guilt as belonging to Harry.
Severus turned down the temperature on the final potion he was brewing for Harry, and left it to gently simmer, while he got out vials in which to decant the potion.
He heard the portrait to their chambers open and close, and heard Harry's all too familiar light tread.
"Did you have a good day?" he called out, stoppering the last vial.
He stepped out of his lab to hear Harry's response.
"Yeah, I did. You?"
"I've been - brewing." Much the best pastime as far as he was concerned. "Potions for you, actually."
"Dreamless sleep?" Harry looked at him questioningly.
"I did brew a half batch of Dreamless sleep. I noticed that you don't take a dose every night any longer," Harry dropped her gaze, and Severus moved on quickly, his effort to re-establish Harry's sense privacy, at least somewhat "so I thought it'd be futile to brew a full batch. For the most part, they are nutritive potions." Severus mentally cursed the Dursley's for about the hundredth time today, "I also brewed an appetite enhancer. You definitely eat too little" Harry emanated surprise (which she likely felt at being treated with care and concern, Severus thought bitterly) and – hurt? That was not what Severus had expected.
"Thank you, Severus." She smiled, but Severus now knew that that smile was not genuine.
"Harry?" Severus was tentative. "What's wrong?" Harry's stab of anger at that was wholly unexpected.
"Stop. Doing. That." She said through gritted teeth, glaring at Severus.
XXX
Harry was truly furious. "Stop reading my emotions, you hypocritical, arse." If Severus knew she was angry, she felt no point in holding back. No point in mincing her words.
"Hypocritical?" Severus asked, startled.
"Bully for you that you can shield your emotions. Well I can't. You don't want me to read your emotions, but you don't even bat an eye at reading mine." Harry was throwing all caution to the wind.
"Harry, I –"
"No! It's not your turn." Harry shouted over Severus "I don't know what your deal is, but evidently, you have something to hide. Gods! Am I repulsive or something? You can't even look at me straight anymore. Why the fuck do you think I do all this?" Harry gestured angrily down her body. "Next time you want me to drop these glamours, or metamorph-whatevers, you'll have to fucking force me. I don't need to hear from you what a freak I look like and I sure as hell don't need to see it in your face every time you look at me." The "too" was left unsaid in that last statement, but Severus still heard it.
Severus stepped forward, and Harry fearing she may have gone too far, took a stumbling step back. Her eyes were wide and watchful, her arms tense, and half crooked, ready to protect herself.
Severus raised his arms, palms wide, in a placating manner. "I made a mista- I made an assumption." He said. "I thought perhaps-" he didn't know how to say this without looking like he was prying. "Do you remember that night? When I asked you to treat me like your bondmate, and you assumed I wanted- well, wanted something you wouldn't want to give?"
Hesitantly, Harry nodded, arms slackening.
"Well, I thought those pig-muggles might have –" He paused to inhale "done something to make you expect that treatment." Harry looked confused, so Severus went on: "I thought perhaps they might have touched you. Inappropriately."
The confusion cleared. Harry raised her chin, and let out an ugly laugh. "The Dursleys wouldn't touch a freak like me. They wouldn't want to soil themselves."
Severus allowed himself a moment the relief these words brought, though the relief was soured by her justification.
"So that's it then?" she said, her mouth twisted in a sneer that didn't suit her. "You don't want the Dursleys sloppy seconds?"
Anger flared white hot inside of Severus. He would KILL those muggles for the ruin they had caused. Without thought, he slammed his fist down.
The effect was almost immediate. Harry had backed stumblingly into the wall. This dance they were engaged in, was all too familiar, and intensely frustrating. Severus felt that every step forward he took, induced a backwards step in Harry. Every reaction he gave to an emotional outburst from Harry, every loss of his control, and she shuttered, her emotions all of a sudden too in control to allow them to be seen.
The change in Harry was so vast and so rapid, that it rendered her almost unrecognisable. Severus wondered if this closed off, skittish Harry was the only one that existed in the summers, when she was sent back to her abusers. He wondered further, how any other version of Harry could exist after all the Dursley's had done.
Her gaze darted between the door and Severus himself, who, with exaggerated slowness had reached for his wand, extricated it from his robes, and allowed it to clatter to the floor, wincing as it hit the ground. He could almost hear Olivander's disapproving tut.
Harry was tensing and relaxing her muscles in rolling waves, as though trying to sink further into the wall, as she edged her way closer to the door.
As calmly as he was able, Severus spoke: "Calm down Harry. Let me explain." The spasmodic writhing had ceased when he spoke, but Harry became rigid with focus. At least she was no longer trying to make her escape. Severus had no doubt that one wrong move on his account would result in the coiled spring that Harry had become, releasing, and she would most certainly run.
"If you would like to go, I will not stop you," Severus tone still inflected with forced calm. "but I would very much like to explain." She gave no sign of relaxing. "I am going to get myself a cup of tea, and then I'm going to sit down, alright? If you want to join me, you can."
XXX
Heart thumping, Harry watched as Severus called out for an order of oolong tea, her eyes drawn to his wand, which lay unassumingly on the floor of their chambers.
As her spike of adrenaline was rapidly burned up, Harry had begun to feel a bit silly. Despite her initial beliefs, Severus was nothing like Vernon Dursley. He had not hurt her since their first night as a bonded pair, and Harry had long since come to realize that that event was an anomaly. Severus could be trusted, she was fairly certain of it, so why did she behave like some weak, frightened child around him.
Her face was hot with shame, and it was a long time before she was able to push herself away from the wall, to sit across from him. He had already drunk half a cup of tea, studiously avoiding looking at her. Harry could not help but feel a surge of gratefulness for this respect of her privacy.
He didn't speak, and Harry shifted uncomfortably. After a time, she realised that he expected her to speak first and so, hurriedly she said: "Sorry." and stared at the rug as though it held the secrets of the universe.
XXX
"I think," said Severus evenly "that if you cast your mind back, you'll remember that I asked you to speak your mind. I hope you are not apologising for doing as I asked." He blew at his tea unnecessarily, for surely it could not still be hot.
Harry mumbled something unintelligible to her lap, but Severus thought he made out the word 'shouting'.
"Sometimes, Harry, shouting is warranted when no one is listening to you, or perhaps when you feel you are not being heard." Severus said gently. "I think that you do not trust adults to listen to you, and so, sometimes, you do not speak at all. It's impossible for me to hear you when you do not speak, and it is this, I believe that made you feel unheard."
Harry glanced up quickly, clearly stunned at this revelation of his, but couldn't sustain her gaze, and dropped it.
Severus had a sneaking suspicion that she felt ashamed, which reminded him.
"What gave you the impression that I found you unappealing?"
Harry chewed her lip, and didn't speak, but Severus was willing to wait.
"You stopped looking at me in the same way." She said eventually. "You stopped touching me."
"Because I assumed-"
"You assumed that I was being assaulted by my uncle. Yeah. I got that." She said bitterly.
"I think you misunderstood me." Severus put his cup on the table between them, leaning forwards. "I did not want to touch you, not because the thought that you had been touched by your uncle made you repulsive, but because I did not want you to think that I would be willing to force what you did not want to give. I did not want to hurt you and I didn't want to be like him."
The surprise on her face was unmistakable. She stared at him, agape, and said eventually: "I know you aren't like him."
Severus felt the weight of that worry lift slightly.
"Y-you told me before that you'd never force me, so I also know that you wouldn't do – that." She flushed high in her cheeks.
She was chewing her lip again, so he knew she had more to say. He waited.
He jerked in surprise when again she spoke, for so much time had elapsed. She spoke as though continuing a train of thought to which he had not been privy.
"So then, why do you hide your emotions?"
It took him a moment to make sense of this. "You mean occlude?"
She stared at him blankly.
"I am a spy for the light. You know this, I am sure. Legilimency is a branch of magic that allows one to read another's mind. The dark lord is rather adept at this skill, so I have taken to occluding, or shielding my mind to prevent his discovery of my double agenda." Harry still looked like she didn't understand how this fit into everything.
"I dropped my occlumency shields for the first time in decades to allow you to reciprocally feel my emotions, and he sensed it. That is why he summoned me."
She looked queasy with guilt, but before she got it into her head to apologise, Severus said hurriedly "It's not your fault. You had no way of knowing. Even I did not know he would be able to sense the change."
"You aren't hiding something then?"
Severus groaned internally. How could they both so fundamentally misunderstand each other?
"If I may," he asked, "what did you think I was hiding?"
Once again, Harry flushed.
"I thought- well. I mean, I know you don't like me like that. I know we're only doing – stuff – because Dumbledore told us to or whatever. I thought maybe you didn't want me to see how much it grossed you out to like, touch me and stuff. To make it easier you know. I suppose that doesn't make much sense, because you'd stopped touching me altogether, but I thought that maybe that was because you'd seen how I really looked, and that had made it even harder. So, I understood why you made the potions, to make things easier for you. And I'll dri-" This was all said at breakneck speed, with barely a breath between sentences.
"HARRY!" Severus shouted to break the verbal stream of self-deprecation. "What in Merlin's name gave you the impression that you repulsed me?"
"It's alright professor, I swear. I'm not offended or anything. I know I'm not a looker. I'll take your potions and everything. I just – overreacted a bit."
Not a 'looker'? What on earth did she think she was? Chopped liver?
"It's Severus, not professor." He reminded gently. "And I find you in no way unappealing, Harry."
She jerked her head, irritably shaking off his response.
"No, really Harry. I find you rather attractive."
She glared at him. "If this is some kind of joke, I don't find it amusing." There was something distinctly Lily-ish about her anger.
"Gods, you're so thin Harry." Harry said in a cruel imitation of Severus' voice. "I know you find Miss Potter's unusual disfigurements intriguing, but try to contain you doughy-eyed adoration for outside my class, Weasley."
Had he truly said that? Would everything Severus had said to Harry come back to haunt him.
"Yeah, well I have a damn sight more disfigurements than you realized, Severus." Harry snarled.
XXX
Severus started unbuttoning his shirt. Had she gone too far? She held her ground, even sitting up straighter. She would not cower like an animal. His movements were fast and jerky, and Harry thought he must be truly furious. She raised her chin boldly - even though she didn't feel it.
He threw his shirt to the floor and stalked towards where she sat on the couch. Harry clenched her fists to hide their shaking.
"Look at me." He said roughly, gesturing down his body. She obstinately kept her eyes on his face, her gaze hard. "I said" he spoke through gritted teeth "Look. At. Me." Her eyes slid downwards, almost against her will, too used as she was to following orders. She started in surprise. His frame was thin and wiry, but that was not what shocked her.
"You see? I have scars too, Harry." He did. Not quite so many as she did, but the ones he had were severe. Lines of scarring from deep cuts crisscrossed his chest. An unusual knot of scaring swirled in the slight hollow below his ribcage. He turned while she stared, to show more cuts on his back, and an old burn scar snaked its way from his where his scapula winged, past the waistband of his trousers.
"Now tell me, do I look repulsive to you?"
Her mouth too dry to speak, she shook her head mutely.
Severus knelt in front of the couch where she sat, his knees framing hers. "I can be a vitriolic, sharp tongued, bastard at the worst of times, and a supercilious, oblivious, git at the best of times. I say things intended to hurt, and more often than not, I achieve my goal." He said all this barely above a whisper, and no one could mistake the pained sincerity in his tone and face. "Pot- your father was thick skinned. When you arrived at Hogwarts, I made the mistake of assuming you had somehow imbued his character. Not just his arrogance, but his thick skin,"
Harry opened her mouth to object that she couldn't be like James, for she had never known him, but Severus raised his hand to stay her, and spoke over her
"I know I was wrong Harry. Please do not mistake my words for attempted excuses. I am about as far from perfect as it is possible to be. *I am dismissive of the virtuous, unaware of the beautiful, and uncomprehending in the face of the happy.* I accused Po-James of being fatally immature. Immaturity was something he mostly grew out of; I am unable to make the same claim, it seems. I have attacked those that hurt me, I have betrayed the few that trusted me. I sought glory and admiration from the darkest recesses of wizarding society and only saw fit to seek redemption when it was far too late. I am a grown man, and I have used my position at times to bully those weaker than me. Please do not take my words, especially my words of the past, as fact.
"I do not think you unusually disfigured. You are a beautiful young lady who has suffered immensely at the hands of those who were supposed to protect you. Your scars are not a sign of weakness, Harry. They're a sign of strength. You survived this. Look at you. You suffered horrors no one should have to experience, and came out of it all with hope, and dignity, and an irrepressible strength. You have demonstrated more compassion in your short than life many people could hope to possess in a hundred lifetimes, when by all rights, you should be a bitter, angry, hateful person." Severus Snape had immense respect from the young woman he had the good fortune to call his bond-mate. He had not left his abusive childhood so emotionally unscathed.
Silent tears left searing, salty tracks down Harry's cheeks.
'"Now as to this potions business: you're thin. Unhealthily so." Shame swelled within Harry. "But if you think for one second that that is your fault, then you are deluded. Harry, those vermin that call themselves your family, starved you."
Harry shook her head mutely, still unable to speak, but Severus seemed to understand. "I know that they did occasionally, if grudgingly, feed you, but what little food they gave was low in protein and nutrients. That has disastrous effects on your health and on your magic." He looked at her severely. "I am attempting to correct the damage they have done to you through their abuse and neglect. I am not fixing you. Do you see the difference?"
Through the tears now falling thick and fast, Harry nodded.
"Is there anything else you wish to discuss?"
Harry croaked a "No" swallowing thickly around her tears.
"Maybe you should go clean up, then. I don't know about you, but I could do with a large supper."
XXX
Later that night, Severus' thoughts were still entirely consumed by Harry.
Severus still couldn't bring himself to initiate intimacies. Logically, he knew that her pig uncle had left that particular stone unturned when it came to Harry's abuse, but she had been abused by almost every other means imaginable.
He knew she was mistrustful, particularly of adults, and Severus felt that if he was always the one initiating, always the one pushing her another step further, she would begin to feel forced.
He also knew that he didn't entirely trust that she would say no when she wanted him to stop.
Thoughts like these kept him awake at night. He was going to leave things, wait for Harry to initiate. If she ever did.
Perhaps… perhaps if he said something to her it could ease the transition.
"Harry?" he spoke into the darkness, half hoping she was asleep.
"Yeah?" came the sleepy response.
"I thought perhaps," he licked his lips, "Perhaps you should head things up from now on."
"Huh?" came the groggy reply
"I don't want to push you into things. I believe, if you told me what to do, then it would make things easier. Smoother. Perhaps make you feel more secure."
She shifted, turning over. "Oh. You mean like I give you orders?" she sounded put out.
"Well, not necessarily. But you should perhaps –" he trailed off.
"Perhaps?" she questioned.
Severus licked his lips again, mouth dry "Perhaps you could uh- initiate things. And break them off."
"Oh." Harry said again, lamely. "Alright then." She turned back over, laying her head down.
She wasn't asleep. It was too quiet. He couldn't hear her breathing.
Eventually, sleep rose to claim Severus, and he allowed himself to be pulled into its murky depths.
Notes:
Favorite quotes? Comments? Kudos?
I devour them (and love them...)