Two months go by, without a word between them more personal than hello, and then Snape summons Harry to his rooms.

"Severus?" Harry asks, the shy man's greeting.

"Harry, I have a gift for you," Snape says, pointing to a cauldron simmering over the hearth.

"Polyjuice?" Harry asks, guessing by sight and smell and the foreboding he feels. He sees what is coming but as usual is powerless to stop it. "You've been to see him, haven't you?"

"Yes," Snape answers. "Disguised as a medical technician, last week."

"Don't," Harry whispers, but it is too late. Severus Snape has disappeared, and before Harry stands Vernon Dursley, older and fatter and grayer than the last time he saw him, but essentially the same.

"Harry," Snape begins, and Harry knows that Snape will be playing the role. What role must Harry play? "Harry, I wanted you all those years ago. I would be a fool not to, you are so beautiful. But I was afraid of hurting you."

"You're not him," Harry whispers, but Snape pays him no mind, and Harry briefly hopes that the man has become absorbed by the evil he is portraying. It'll strip them both of blame in the end.

"Harry, I won't hurt you now. And you can't hurt me. We're equals now, except you owe me something. For existing. Your great crime against me, Harry, was being born. But you're an intelligent young man now, I see. You understand that this wasn't your fault. In this one thing, you had no choice. But you can make it up to me. Harry," Snape breathes, "Harry, please suck my cock."

And Harry is on his knees in seconds, crawling towards his uncle, crying, crying, he doesn't want to do this the fucker the fucker he doesn't get to have him!

"Please stop!" Harry cries, trying to get off his knees, but unable to do anything but collapse and curl into himself.

And still Snape goes on. "Harry! Come here now, boy! You owe this to me. You want it. You need it. This is the only chance you'll ever have to make anybody happy," Snape bellows.

"You son of a bitch," Harry chants. "You son of a bitch."

"Why, Harry?" Snape asks, and this is really Snape, not the role that is nauseating him so. "Why?"

"I didn't do anything to you!" Harry screams, accepting the lie this one time. "I cleaned up after you, I bent over backwards to please you, I fell to my knees to please you, hating you all the time, and all you ever did was yell and scream and bruise and bury me! And throw me away! You threw me away after all I did for you! So you can fucking go to hell!"

Snape retreats into his bedroom, leaving Harry on the floor, as they both wait for the hour to run out. And when it does, Harry is walking into the bedroom, stripping himself with the ease and practice of a thousand dreams, and is devouring Severus Snape in seconds, watching the teeth when he feels like it. But Severus stops him.

"Oh come on," Harry sighs. "You've proven your point. You're not him, just like all those boys weren't him, and I never wanted them to be him anyway. So why can't I finish you off?"

"I want you up here," Severus answers, tapping out S.O.S against his own lips.

They kiss, they drink each other in, they unite and sigh and sigh again, as Harry allows himself to be made happy. And he is happy with Severus, unconcerned at the idea that this might be only a fleeting healing. He's unconcerned with the certainty that, within the year, the Potions Master will have stopped him from cutting. He's unconcerned with the fact that Severus will not let him fall to his knees for the next few months. He is only worried that Severus doesn't often smile, and that when he looks unhappy, or bored, or angry, Harry is worried at the need he feels to rip himself open to make amends. Harry worries at the ease with which he found himself in Severus's bed. He worries that the very happiness he feels when he is in that bed is exactly the same as the euphoria he felt on Thursday evenings, painting himself with blood. He worries at Severus being so close, the healer and lover. Above all, Harry is concerned by the absence of love, the grand, sweeping love that he has never felt and that Severus says he does not believe in. He tries, some nights, to tell Severus what it is that he feels. A need to protect. A desire to please. A sense, during separation, that separation cannot truly exist between them. A peace with the silence that falls between them at times. A lightness during conversations. A weight in his chest when he cannot help him with a given problem. Harry runs out of words at this point, and Severus will usually respond with an offer of a potion, or drink, or hand job, to cure his ails. And Harry will laugh, and refuse the potion, and smile when Severus laughs and calls him "maddening". And Severus will remind him to take the medicine that will save both of their hearts, and Harry, one day, will stop wondering what this means.

The End J