Chapter 25

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Diary of a Call Girl.

Things had fallen back into a steady rhythm after the dinner with the Weasleys. Severus was still busy with work and Draco was wrapped up in Neville, but while Hermione was busy working Ron was almost always free. Things had been rough between the pair of them since he had left for school, but now that they saw a lot more of each other it was as if none of that mattered now. Ron had spent the last few days applying for various summer jobs and Harry had tagged along. After a long morning of applying at anywhere that was taking on Ron left him on his own to go and meet Hermione for lunch and that left him wishing that Severus had the time to meet him for lunch.

After kicking around on the high street for a bit longer he grabbed something for lunch and took it home to eat on his step. It was a rare perfect day in London and his step was the perfect place to soak up the sun. Somedays he missed his little flat in Camden and his and Draco's spot on the roof, but mostly on days when he was left to his own devices. After finishing his sandwich he pulled out a cigarette, but nearly dropped it out of his mouth when he looked up. There standing in front of him was Rita Skeeter. He couldn't believe his eyes, Severus had said she wouldn't be a problem anymore, but from the sickeningly sweet smile on her face she wasn't here with good news. Neither of them said anything for the longest time, but simply measured each other up.

Harry's mouth went dry when he finally put two and two together. It had been her that had sent him the envelope with the information about Severus and Lucius. He stood up to face her when she finally decided to speak.

"Fancy seeing you here," she smiled sweetly, but Harry could feel his stomach turning over.

"What do you want?" Harry asked quietly.

"Oh, I can think of a few things," she smiled again and flexed her fingers showing her cherry red nails.

"Yeah, like?" He asked feeling himself grow more confident. "I thought Severus took care of you."

"No need to worry about that. Your lovely finance merely exacerbated things if anything else. You see when you do what he did, well then there has to be consequences."

"What are you talking about?"

"He ruined me," She sneered.

"Yeah, well you weren't that great to begin with," Harry retorted.

"Well, you see with all of this information that I've obtained, I will be greatly rewarded."

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked worriedly.

"Not so confident now, huh? Your lovely fiance has quite the track record, much like yourself. You're quite young to have such a list of high profile clients. Politicians, celebrities, the works. Very high profile clients that pay a great deal of money for this to remain under wraps," She smiled again and he felt his stomach roll.

"How do you know all of this?" Harry demanded.

"It's not hard to do when you've got the right contacts and well now I've got all the right information. You see I know that you were a gift from Lucius Malfoy for your lovely fiance."

"What do you want?!" Harry demanded.

"I want you to leave him. I want to take away the only thing that has ever mattered from him, but I want you to be the one to do it. I want you to destroy him to his very core."

"Or what?"

"Or I run the various pieces of information I have about him and his gang related activity as a youth and I run every client you've ever had and the number of times you've had them. You see with as many high profile clients you've had I'm sure a few of them will be less than happy, and you know where that will get you," She said running one of her nails across her throat.

"And if I just tell him? What then what if he takes care of you for real this time?" Harry asked angrily.

"I've already worked that out as well. You see if anything were to happen to me there are multiply people in and out of the country who know what to do with said information."

"Why?"

"It's all in a day's work," she smiled again. "Also, I don't think your lovely friend, what's his name again? Oh, yes, Draco would like to have his father's name drug through the mud."

"Why can't you just ask for money or something?" Harry asked grasping at straws.

"Because I know the money doesn't matter to you and this isn't about personal gain," She said turning to walk away. "I'll give you until August 1st to leave him." She called over her shoulder.

It was a week until Harry's birthday, a week to decide what he had to do. He needed to tell Severus, but would that put them both at risk? He didn't care about himself, but he didn't want anything to happen to Severus, he didn't want any harm to come to him. This was all too much for him to handle. He could either tell him and risk hurting him and there was Draco to think of. If he hurt Severus he would hurt both of them beyond repair, but maybe it was better to let him go and to let things go back to how they used to be. Could things ever go back to be remotely similar to how they used to be? Everything was going wrong at the worst possible time, he was engaged to Severus, the man of his dreams, they were going to get married and spend their lives together, but now he felt as though those things couldn't possibly ever be realized.

The entire thing made him feel so sick, that he had to go into the loo and empty the contents of his stomach. He crawled into bed and and waited for Severus to come home. He knew that he had to tell the man, but he wasn't sure what could possibly done. The horrible woman seemed to have them at an impasse. He decided to put this off for as long as possible, he would tell the man the day before his birthday. If it had to happen, and nothing could be done he needed to delay the effects of it for as long as possible. Harry wanted to have the right to enjoy what could be their last few days together. He found himself wishing that he had told Severus of the envelope sooner, that maybe all of this could have been avoided if he hadn't been so stupid.

Severus came home and found him fitfully sleeping in their bed, when he shook Harry to wake him up he smiled broadly at the man. He found himself pulling Severus into bed and kissing him. Soon, they were pulling at each other's clothes in mad dash to undress the other. Harry ached with desperation to make love to the man. When they were finished Harry lay panting and clinging to the man, they were wrapped around each other. He felt sated and some of the anxiety seemed to temporarily melt away. Then it hit him that this could be one of the last times they were together like this. The tears started to fall and awful body shaking sobs escaped from him. Severus sat up and desperately begged him to tell him what was wrong. Harry couldn't form coherent words through the sobs, and Severus pulled him close to his chest and whispered that whatever it was that it was going to be okay.

"It's not going to be okay," Harry sobbed out.

"What's happened?!" Severus asked with panic.

"Rita...Skeeter," Harry sobbed again.

"What? What did she do?" Severus pressed more.

Harry finally stopped crying enough to explain what had happened to him after leaving Ron. How she had threatened them and he went and got the hidden envelope. Severus made him a cup of tea and told him that he was going to sort this out, and disappeared into his study. Harry tried really hard to keep it together, but soon lost his composure and was crying again. It was as if Severus could sense and the study door flew open and he came out talking to someone on his phone. He led Harry to the sofa and got one of the blankets from the closet and wrapped it around him and held him close. Harry didn't pay attention to what was being said on the phone and concentrated on the warmth radiating from Severus' chest instead. He didn't know what Severus was doing it all felt so hopeless now. He felt so stupid for being upset over menial things like sitting at home alone all day. This was all he needed, all he wanted was for at the end of the day for Severus to come home and be with him.

He didn't remember dozing off, but he only woke when he felt Severus shifting him onto the bed. He opened his eyes and watched the man, who now looked incredibly wary, change into his night clothes.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"For what? What could you possibly have to be sorry for?" Severus said turning around quickly.

"I should have said something about the envelope sooner. I was just trying to protect you," he said pushing himself up to sit.

"I don't need you to protect me, you silly idiot," Severus said brushing his hair back and kissing him.

"I feel so stupid for being unhappy now," Harry conceded.

"What do you mean unhappy?" Severus asked quietly.

"I was just unhappy with staying at home all the time and you were working late, and Ron would run off to meet Hermione for lunch and I wanted that," Harry sighed. "I'm so used to having a job and a schedule and now I feel like a useless lay about. None of that matters now, all that matters is you."

"You have to tell me these things, you can't just bottle them up," Severus said seriously.

"I'm sorry," Harry blushed.

"No more, okay?" Severus asked and Harry nodded.

"What does she have on you?" Harry asked after a moment. "What did you do that was so bad?"

"Do you remember the night we met, and I told you about being mixed up in less than honorable things when I was younger?" He asked and Harry nodded tersely. "It all started when I was still in school, there was this group of boys, mostly led by Lucius. Lucius was a few years older than me and I had come from a less than honorable home life. My father was an alcoholic and my mother had died right before my father shipped me off to school."

"What does this have to do with Rita?" Harry asked and Severus held up his hand to stop him.

"I was an angry 13 year old boy. My mother had just died and my grandfather, her father, had made himself known. He was not a kind man and insisted my father enroll me in boarding school on his dime. He insisted that I be educated if I were to inherit the Prince family money.

My father of rejected him at first, he saw more worth in keeping me around, but my father was an employed alcoholic with an addiction to fuel. My grandfather paid him off essentially, gave him the money to gain the consent to send me away to school, and the parental rights to me. My father drank himself to death a few years later," Severus said thoughtfully.

"I don't understand," Harry started and Severus held up a hand to stop him.

"You see I was angry and hurt and damaged because I had just lost my mother, the only person in the world to have cared for me. My father essentially sold me to a complete stranger with the title of being my grandfather. Lucius took me under his wing. He made me feel as if someone wanted me around. He made me feel like I mattered, we quickly became best friends.

Then Lucius got mixed up with a man named Tom Riddle. Tom was a very bad man, and he ran a series of crime rings throughout the country. By this time I was around 16 and Lucius had left school and I was an angry child, and Lucius spoke so highly of it all and eventually I joined. I took the mark and I started to work for Tom."

"But you don't have a tattoo?" Harry asked confused.

"Not anymore," Severus said gesturing to a scar on his forearm. "When I left I had it removed. Lucius on the other hand stuck around. He liked the power and weight that came with his position."

"What does she have on you though? You were a member of this group, but what did you do that was so bad?"

"I helped kill someone, Harry," Severus said painfully. "I was seventeen and a foolish boy."

"You what?" Harry asked in disbelief.

"It was part of the initiation," Severus started to explain.

Harry didn't hear anything after that, but there was a warm rushing that blocked out the rest of the world. Severus had just dropped the biggest bomb of them all on him. Was this really happening? Had today been anything more than a fever dream? He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Severus was responsible for the death of another person, a person with a life and a family, and Rita Skeeter probably knew everything. His head was spinning, everything around him started to dissolve. What had he done. He found himself wishing that he'd never become an escort, that he'd never gone to that party, that he'd never met Severus. Not meeting and falling in love with him had to be less painful than all of this every though about being. He should have just gone to university with Ron and Hermione, he should have tried harder in school. He should have never broken his own rule and fallen in love with someone, especially not a client.

Before he knew it he was up and mechanically throwing clothes into a bag. He just had to go, he had to leave before any of this got out. He had to do it for Severus, he had to protect the man from himself. He couldn't let any of this happen. He shouldn't have gotten involved, none of this made any sense to him. He wasn't forming comprehensive thoughts and just kept throwing clothes into his bag.

"What're you doing?" Severus asked hastily.

"I've gotta go. I've got to get out of here, this was all a mistake. I shouldn't have done this. I've messed things up for the both of us," He said desperately.

"Harry, calm down it's the middle of the night," Severus reasoned, the desperation clear in his voice.

"I can't. I've just got to go. You killed someone, there's no coming back from that Severus. If she gets that out then you'll go to prison, this isn't just any small scandal this is proper terrible stuff. If I don't leave then she'll ruin you, and either way you'll be gone. I'd rather not have you and let you have a proper life than one in prison," Harry cried.

"I'm going to sort this out," Severus protested.

"You can't, this one is bigger than both of us. She's got loads of people out there who know, and if this is what it takes to keep you safe then so be it," Harry said hastily zipping up the bag.

"Where are you going, it's the middle of the night?"

"I don't know," Harry said softly.

"At least wait until morning, please don't go," Severus pleaded.

"If I don't go now, then I won't in the morning," Harry said apologetically. "I really do love you, you know?"

"I love you too," Severus said the defeat evident in his voice.

Harry pulled the engagement ring off and placed it in Severus' hand and placed a kiss on his cheek.

"Keep it," Severus said softly.

"I can't," Harry said shaking his head sadly.

"I'm going to fix this, and then I'm going to come for you," he vowed angrily.

"I hope so," he said not sure if he believe it or not and with that he was gone.

A/N: oooo that's it for this story. I'll post on here so y'all will receive the notification when I post the first chapter of the sequel which will be soon I promise! I hope you liked it. Thanks for reading and reviewing.