Title: Painting With Light
Pairing: HP/SS SLASH
Rating: PG-13, but if you have an active imagination, it has possibilities
Author: Tubesox
Disclaimer: I don't have a job, so I couldn't possibly afford the upkeep on Sev's wardrobe of leather and very flattering three-piece suits, so I leave it to J.K. Rowling to keep our boys in the lap of luxury. And please, buy Remus some nice robes? Nothing against patches, but I want him to be happy.
Summary: I'm not tellin', except that the general concept was inspired by a commercial I saw on AMC or TCM featuring Alan Rickman drawing Jimmy Stewart. And a giraffe. Good times.
Painting with Light
"You're glowing." I felt the need to point this out to him, but he really must have known. He must have seen it. How could he not, when his skin was practically pearl? "When did this happen?"
He looks down at the shape of my hand, glowing there on his wrist, even though my hand of flesh and blood was drawn back now, not for fear, just so I could see. It was oddly moving, seeing the outline of my hand looking so pure. When I was younger, or even a few years ago, I used to imagine that my touch on anything, beautiful or no, would leave a mark, but not like this. I imagined ink, sometimes blood, with a texture of snakeskin, writhing, not at all comforting, even to a Slytherin like myself.
"It must have been in that explosion last week," he answers, and if I heard disappointment in his voice, it must have been imagined. The mark my hand had left was fading, and why would he be disappointed by that? If there is one thing I have in common with Potter, it is the hatred of enduring marks.
"You sound unsure," I say, not really wanting to sound impatient or angry, but sounding that way just the same. And contrary to what some may think, it is not a habit with me. I have no habits. I've made it a point not to.
"I hadn't noticed, until just now," he answers, a defensive hostility rising to the surface. But he's older now, nearly twenty, and has clearly been working on concealing his emotions, just as I knew he must. "Generally, I don't let people touch me."
"Not even mediwizards?" I ask.
"There was no need," he says, mumbling, and I wonder how much of this posture is false modesty, and how much is embarrassment over excessive pride. "At least I thought there wasn't. I didn't get any of the potions on me."
He's referring of course to the disaster in the Potions lab at the Ministry, an example of the destructive power of idiocy. "Why were you there in the first place? Albus never said." I regret asking immediately, the name stinging my lips, and Potter reaches for the framed portrait resting on what days ago was Albus Dumbledore's desk. This time, I do not reach out to stop him, fearful at the moment of seeing my mark on him once more, as if worried it could have changed from that dazzling shine to something all together uglier in the matter of minutes.
"I can't believe he's gone," Potter whispers. I can't begin to imagine what he thinks he knows about Albus Dumbledore, but through my irrational belief that Harry Potter has no right to mourn for the man, I still find it in me to feel sorry for him.
"He wasn't in pain," is all I can say. It's uncharacteristic of me to give comfort, but the truth is something I manage quite well.
"I was walking Hermione back to her office, after lunch," Harry says, answering my standing question.
"Was Miss Granger hurt in the explosion?"
"No, Mrs. Weasley wasn't," Harry answers, smiling, small. "No one was, actually, beyond a few bruises and scrapes here and there."
"But you're glowing," I repeat, even though he's not, not anymore.
"Are you sure your hands are clean?" He doesn't mean to say it. He merely chose the natural phrase. He isn't spitting out that vitriol that his godfather wished to teach him. I don't know much about Potter, but I do know that he wouldn't take cheap shots, not about something like that.
"Quite," I answer, and he smiles again, obviously relieved that I didn't take the question in the wrong way.
"Well, maybe the fumes? Hermione said they were only brewing healing potions though."
"And this is the first time it's happened?"
"Yes," he answers. "It doesn't happen when I touch…myself."
I can't help but laugh, more from his embarrassment and awareness than from a wish to cause his blush. "And do you often touch yourself, Potter?" This is obscene, I know. We are standing in Albus's office, days after his death, and we are being obscene.
"Well, somebody's got to do it," he grins. I ignore the sadness in his eyes because, really, I don't need that kind of weight in me.
"Yes. Is there anything you wish to keep from here?" I ask.
"May I?" he asks, and shocks me by not choosing the Gryffindor sword, which is rightly his, but instead the empty candy dish on the desk.
"Yes," I answer. "Take the sword too." Minerva might have appreciated it, but it isn't hers. Albus was holding it for James, and for Harry, and, if he had lived, he would have kept it for a new generation of Potters who would all have to come looking for answers. Godric had wanted it that way, a foolish notion that postponing your destiny would make any future glories seem earned, not inherited. As if blood really mattered that much.
"Who is going to look after Fawkes?" he asks. The poor bird looks dreadful today, which, with all of his red plumage, is even more heartbreaking. Suddenly I feel as if it is my burning day.
"I am," I answer.
"For the potion ingredients?" he asks. Again, he doesn't mean to be callous. It's not in his nature to assume it's in mine.
"For the company."
We leave the office shortly after, and I grab his hand once more when we reach the foot of the stairs. I assume he will be leaving, and I am saying goodbye, but what I really want is to paint him in light, again. I'm shocked to feel the need to repress a sob at seeing him radiate what I wish was essence of me. And I'm humiliated by the sudden need I have to embrace the man. I'm about to ask permission when he stops me.
"Would it be alright if I stayed for dinner?" he asks, looking at his hand, or rather my hand, instead of in my eyes.
"I'm not sure if it would be appropriate for the students to see you," I answer, damning my practicality. I can't deny that I want him to stay, but Potter carries his celebrity with him everywhere he goes, and if there's one thing I don't want, it is a demigod distracting the children from their appropriate grieving process. We'll wait another week before "cheering them up", probably with some appallingly maudlin feast or hormonal dance.
"No, I agree. I'd prefer just to go grab something from the kitchens," Harry answers.
"I won't ask how you know where to find them," I say as I follow him down the hall. Neither of us say anything about my presence, but we eat in companionable silence, save for a visit from a house elf that is apparently friends with the young man, and afterwards he follows me to my rooms for a drink, or a conversation. These are the only things I dare hope for, though I cannot remember when I first felt I wanted more. Surely, it can't be mere light that I crave.
"It's amazing, isn't it?" Harry asks, looking at his hand. It appears to be normal, the same soft gold skin tone that he has been draped in ever since he began playing Quidditch in his youth. "Do you have any idea how this could have happened?"
"There are a number of phosphorescent properties in some advanced healing potions, any combination of which could cause a reaction with body heat," I answer. I must admit to myself that I'm not putting much thought into the query, knowing that he won't understand and thinking that he doesn't really care. "It would be difficult for me to answer your question without a list of the potions that were being brewed. I'm assuming some of them were topical ointments. One element must be dependent on friction, to respond to touch, but it's curious that there is no reaction when you…rub your hands together," I finish lamely. This is beyond ridiculous, and now I'm concerned that he's been inundated with pheromones, if it weren't for the fact that I know he's bathed in the week since the incident. I can smell a mild sandalwood soap on him.
"Would…do you mind, much?" he asks shyly, holding out his hand. We're on my sofa, in front of a coffee table, and I'm cataloguing our surrounding just so I know what he's asking. Or so I will remember, after. There's a bottle of scotch waiting in front of me, but I know that is not what he is reaching for. So I reach for him.
I don't know which is worse, the lure of my fingerprints, lustrous on his palm, or the smile of wonder that lights up his face. "Amazing," he whispers, and I am paralyzed. So he moves his hand beneath mind, making the room brighter and brighter. "I would have thought your fingertips would be callused," he says. The spell is broken, and I find my voice.
"I wear a second skin when I work," I answer, damning my self for hoarseness.
"That I already knew," he says, smiling again, gently. He doesn't want to be personal with me, which is laughable, considering he's holding my hand. And now he's reaching into my sleeve, so my fingers draw a line up his forearm. I can't help it and laugh, giggle almost, as he inadvertently tickles my elbow. I never knew I was ticklish there. It's comforting, for whatever reason. Tonight, I'm finding all sorts of soft spots. Albus would have been proud, I think. Then I brace myself for a pang that never comes. Someone up there is letting me be happy for this.
"You feel warm," Harry says. I'm not surprised that I now think of him as Harry. I can't imagine why.
"My rooms are heated, to fight the cold. I normally don't wear my teaching robes in here," I answer.
"Take them off," he shrugs, purposefully blushing to undermine the command he has given me. Help me, I do obey.
"I've never seen a man wearing a vest underneath his robes," he says.
"I was raised in a formal environment," I answer. "Look," I say, desperate to get his attention off me, pointing at the fading line of light on his arm. "It doesn't last long, does it?"
"No, it wouldn't, would it?" he asks bitterly, and I find more things to mourn in that simple statement than a near lifetime of tentative friendship with the great Albus Dumbledore. This sudden turn towards sentimentality drives me to swallow the remains of my scotch more quickly than prudence allows.
"It's a simple matter of heat, Potter," I say, lightly. I find it best to keep myself light when I feel I am sinking.
"No, not so simple," he says. "I'm warm, right now, but I'm not lit up like a Christmas tree, am I?"
"No, that you aren't." Merlin, how I wish to make him / shine /.
He must read my thoughts, because he is picking up my hand now and moving it towards his face. I'm afraid, I don't know why, but he only brushes my knuckles beneath his eyes, making his cheekbones glow, luminescent. I am sure that now his whole perspective is bathed in the brilliance that we have made, together. And I can't explain how much I want to take that for my own.
"Now you're glowing," he says, putting his glasses on the table. "I've never seen you like this."
"No, you wouldn't have," I say, before I can stop myself. I don't want him remembering me in the darkness, always in the darkness. It's as if it hurts to have ever been…other than this, for him, and I can't see why, since I was perfectly happy to be Professor Snape, Potions Master. Well, as happy as I allowed myself to be, which was all I deserved. Deserve. It is still all I deserve, and it is foolish to tarry here with him in this way, weak as well, but if I want to make allowances for myself, the death of my mentor has permitted me to do so, at least for a while.
"Will you…will you be alright?" he asks. At least I know that I have given him little indication of why that question is so absurd, but that is not very comforting.
"Yes. Will you?" I didn't mean to ask. And I didn't even mean to answer. He's looking at me, in his fading light, like I am worth looking at, and the fallacy of this is going to my head. I really don't know what is going on. I am lost.
"Yes. Is it terrible to say that…I'm glad this isn't the first time?" I know what he means. The Diggory boy, Finnigan, Percy Weasley, they have all become buffers for this moment of loss. That doesn't mean they are worth less to him, but now their deaths serve the greater purpose, within his heart, of preparing him for the worst. At least, until someone even closer dies.
"Not at all," I answer. And he smiles. Again. It is sure to be the death of me, as I can feel something crack deep within my chest cavity. What was it he said to me, his fifth year? Oh yes, a heart 'two sizes too small'. But he didn't mean it. It was one of the rare times he apologized, afterwards. And it was the standard unforgiving response from me.
"What a night," he sighs. "A funeral, a rain storm, I'm glowing, and now this," he laughs.
"This?" Who cares if I know what he's saying, I still need him to say it.
"This conversation. This you. Where have you been?"
'Hiding', I want to say, but I don't want to admit it, so I say nothing at all.
"Will I glow forever?" he asks, looking concerned all of a sudden. I'm surprised he hadn't asked before, or even considered adverse effects on his health.
"It should wear off soon, maybe a day or two, depending on how long you were exposed to the fumes. You must consult a mediwizard if you have any respiratory problems, any rashes, or any hair loss."
"I wouldn't worry about that last one," he chuckles, running his hand through his thick black hair. "Hey, do you think…I only want to see if it glows too," he says, so my fingers delve into his hair, run behind his ear, before he even has a chance to ask.
"Well?"
"Nothing," I say. A blatant lie, but it is true that his hair does not glow.
"Come on then," he says, standing, holding his hand out to me, and I think he is leaving. He must be leaving. But I don't want him to go out in the rain. Whatever it is that is happening right now, I can't let it wash away. I can't lose something else, this day.
"Don't go yet," I say. I can't help myself. I can't believe myself. Obviously, I can't trust myself either, but I say it anyway.
"I wasn't going," he says, his hand still out, and I grab hold of it, hard, and what should have been white light becomes blue.
"Wow," he breathes. "Harder?" But I can't. I haven't in me to be rough with him.
"Please?" he asks. I'm standing now, wondering why he wanted me to be in this position. I can't afford to wonder other things. But then he wrenches his hand free and makes a dive for my elbow. I am shocked. Harry Potter is trying to tickle me. But it works, his game, and I smack his hand away, and suddenly the space between us is filled with a deep violet glow. It is beautiful, but I tell him otherwise.
"I prefer the white."
"That's fine," he says. It is dangerous, this acceptance he meets me with. And now I'm relieved to be damning myself for wanting to see what colors I can draw out of him. "Do you think if you touched me more softly, it would be different?"
What is softer? A kiss, I suppose. But not a real one, only a brush of my lips against his neck, which immediately turns golden.
"Well?" he asks, not at all shocked or offended or frightened by my presumption. I lead him to a mirror, and he looks, briefly, before closing his eyes tight.
"Potter?" I ask. He looks pained, but then he turns around and seizes my face in his hands, kissing me so hard that when he withdraws, I see red, and fear one of us is bleeding. But it is only light.
"Please," I say, again. "Please, I prefer the white." And gold, but this I will not say, because the softness of gold could very well kill me at this point. Gryffindor gold, I realize. I need to laugh.
"What is it?" he asks, but I'm too distracted by his hands, which are removing his shirt, revealing to me a beautiful blank canvas.
"The Gryffindor colors," I answer, not making sense to my own ears.
"You want to find your silver and green?" he asks, moving across the room to lie on my bed. Oh how I do.
I hover above him, more careful of my hands than I have ever been with a lover. I keep the pressure light as I run one finger across his chest, drawing something that will only take shape when I'm ready for both of us to see it. When I touch a nipple and he moans, I stop, and stare at him, his face, his eyes looking toward the ceiling, where the light so bright on his skin is projected there, my art up in the firmament.
"Oh, Severus," he sighs.
It is a stag, and Harry is not unhappy when he looks at me. I'm sure neither of us will forget that night, two years ago. The end of the war, and irony of ironies, I'm almost killed by a rogue Dementor. Death Eaters and Aurors both after my head, and a vagrant soul-sucker happens across my path. And Harry saved me, with this symbol. I don't know what it means to him, but it means everything to me, apparently.
"Why is this important to you?" I ask.
"The stag? It saved you," he says, and I bless him for misunderstanding.
"No, why does your Patronus take this form? Do you know?" It isn't unreasonable to ask this. I still can't understand why mine is in the shape of a werewolf. Merlin knows that nothing about that creature makes me feel safe.
"You won't like the answer," he laughs. Giggles. "My father was an animagus, and this was his form."
"Splendid," I say. I don't sound upset, so I mustn't be.
"Erase it," he says, and I run my hand in one broad stroke over his torso. I understand; the symbol of his father being here for this moment would be a bit awkward, for both of us. And we've saved each other so many times now that to highlight this one instance would be an injustice to our…relationship.
"Do you want to…"he begins, starting to unbutton his pants.
"No," I say. "Don't."
And his face crumples into itself. "But…I thought you liked me like this?"
Oh, the painful beauty of human frailty. "I'm unwilling to be blinded by you," I whisper, knowing that if I speak too loud, one of us will break.
"Oh, ok," he stammers. "I'll just," and he begins to move off the bed, something which I can't see. I can't see him leave.
"Harry, stay the night?" I ask. How can I tell him that now, after all these years, I am suddenly afraid of the dark?
"I don't understand," he frowns, but he is sitting back down.
"Things might look different in the morning," is all I can say.
"And…that would be enough for you?" he asks, unsure, maybe even incredulous.
"Yes." I am nothing but truth in this light. "It would be enough."
The End
A/N the second…well, yes, I have often been accused of ending my stories right when I get to the "good part", but, well, you're all creative people, so imagine yourselves a better ending. I envision fireworks. A literal rainbow. I just couldn't bring myself to write it, obvious connotations were just too daunting to escape hilarity, and who wants hilarity?