Part 3: Severus
* I had no luck
I had no shame
I had no cause, just 17 days of rain
And you in my eyes…*
I'm so tired and I wish Harry would stop, just for once. Damned brat. He has no idea how hard it is to keep this charade up. I wish the insufferable bastard would let it end. This monstrous mistake has been going on long enough. But when he first came back to the castle, looking that way…we agreed, damnit! We agreed that it was lust and that it would be painless and loveless. Why does he insist on offering to care for me? To spend the night in my bed? It's out of guilt. I know it is. He's trying to be the noble one, but it's not as if he really loves me. It's my fault his friends are dead, for God's sake. He understands the debt I owe him and he's calling it in. He won't admit to it, but that is what this is. Or was supposed to be. It only took seventeen days of miserable weather to make me fall in love with the wretch. There's no way I'd ever let him sleep in my bed now. He'd wake up and see the look on my face and he'd know that I've taken it too far. And he'd leave me. And the worst thing is that he wouldn't leave out of malice. He'd leave because he'd think his job is done. Severus Snape, healed at last! He'd go off and find another wounded lamb, the guilt for being impervious to all of life's pains driving him to heal. As if he could ever heal me, the way he acts. All pity. Damn Albus. He sees what I'm doing. He must. He sees that I'm harsh with Harry, that I'm callous towards him. He knows that I'm being selfish for acting this way, for tricking Harry into thinking that my heart needs mending. Albus must want me to set Harry free of whatever obligation he thinks he has to me. That must be why the headmaster always sounds so worried when he speaks about Harry. He thinks he's wasting his chance to find real love while he's fucking me out of pity, or whatever it is that makes Harry think he wants to stay at night. But then, there's something more to Albus's fretting. He digs his elbow into my side every time Harry rubs his eyes or mutters to himself. Is Harry saying something about me? He's probably trying to think of a way to get out of this arrangement. But last night I offered an out. I told him that if I was hurting him he could leave. When he said no, he wouldn't leave, I nearly broke down. I'm so relieved that he's staying this summer. Maybe he'll put up with letting me make love to him during the day, if he can bear to see me in the light.