Under your spell

Pairing: HP/SS

Rating: R

Warning: Slash, angst, M/M, Songfic

Disclaimer: All characters from Harry Potter belong to JK Rowling and Warner Brothers. I'm just an obsessed maniac who is also an insomniac thanks to the voices in her head. I don't own the song or the lyrics either. I'm not looking to make money out of this and am just slaying the bunnies that are multiplying in my brain. Trust me, if you try to sue me, it won't get you any money cos I'm dirt broke already!

Archived: ask please

Feedback: Desperately needed…

A/N: I heard this song on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and was hooked. Seriously, for whoever who has not heard the song before, go check it out. It is amazing. Written by Joss Whedon, the same guy who writes the Buffy episodes. Anyway, it was definitely what I was looking for to wrap up this triptych. Hope you all like it. I am very nervous about this one since it is a totally new style for me. I hope it turns up ok, especially the formatting. It might be a bit confusing and if so, let me know and I'll rearrange the formatting to make it more coherent. Huge thanks to Linda and Drusilla Dax for betaing. Also to all who reviewed and have read the fic. Thank you. I might consider doing a series on how they got together and all but it won't be songfics. I'm not too sure yet though. Anyways... Enjoy. And please, Read and Review.

&Severus Snape's POV&

*Harry Potter's POV*

Normal POV

/Italics/

As the fire flickers and casts it's shadows on the lone occupant, the dungeon wards glimmer slightly. Swiftly, the Potions master sits up straighter, turning his head slightly and casting a ghostly shadow of his profile on the far wall. His ebony black eyes sharpen their gaze, attempting to see through the ever widening crack of the opening door. He knew that special tingle of the wards. /He/ was back. His wait was over. Finally, the door opened fully to reveal the face, the eyes he yearned to see, even if he would never admit it to anyone. The look in the beloved eyes though, it was different. It took his breath away. He had not seen that look directed at him for a very long time. /He/ was home. Finally home, for good. No words needed to be spoken. No signs needed to be given. All that he had needed was that one look in /his/ eyes. It was going to be all right. His Harry had come back.

Harry walked towards him, still not saying a word, just looking at him /that/ way. Intent, intense, as if he was the only thing worth seeing in the whole world. Strong arms encircled him and he was lifted up into a secure and loving embrace. Even then, no word had been spoken. A wave of a wrist and the radio came to life, a mellow tune began playing. Harry carried him into the bedroom, the sultry melody followed after them as the two men slowly were divested of their clothing and both lay in bed together. Touching each other, looking into each other's eyes, loving each other even as they both listened to the voice of the female singer croon out words that touched both of them.

/I lived my life in shadow,
Never the sun on my face./

& For all my life, I have always been overlooked. In fact, I encouraged it most of the time, preferring to blend in and hide in the shadows till my time came. My parents taught me the old ways, children should be seen and not heard. It was a lesson I learned early and I learnt it well. As I grew older it became habit. Like I said, I had learnt young and my aversion to crowds and people grew as I grew older and saw as well as felt the true nature of people. I grew up very secluded, the only company I had was my tutor who was a very taciturn man, old and stern, agreeing with my parents that sparing the rod would spoil the child. I saw my parents only once a month for 'inspections'. When I started Hogwarts, I was taught by the infamous Marauders that my kind was expendable, and I didn't deserve to be in the company of decent people other than to play the fool. &

*I can remember one day when I was only three. I remember having a nightmare, it was one I had had before, a dream that repeated over and over again throughout my life. There was a flash of green light and the sound of laughter, then this sense of flying and always when I woke up I would have this image of a hairy, face and a flying motorcycle. What made that particular nightmare so special was the fact that Dudley had one as well that night. He had eaten too many sweets just before dinner and he was crying so loudly, wailing and screaming for his mum and dad. I can still remember the pounding that took place upstairs as Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon ran as fast as they could to Dudley's room, and I peeked out of my cupboard to see them carry him downstairs, cuddling him and holding him, soothing him as best as they could and finally giving him some sweets. Before they went back upstairs, I crept back into bed and cried out as well. Crying out for my mum and dad, screaming just like Dudley did. You see, before this, whenever I had a nightmare and screamed out, they just pounded on the door and told me to shut up. Or stomped on the stairs heavily, shouting at me. I thought I must have been doing it wrong. That Dudley did something different from my cries before and so I imitated him as best as I could. Maybe that night they would hold me just like they did Dudley. Maybe I wouldn't be a freak anymore if I were more like Dudley.

Vernon locked me in the cupboard for a week for crying so loudly and disturbing their poor Dudley. *

/It didn't seem so sad though,
I figured that was my place./

& Yes, I was a Slytherin, I had ambitions to gain power and recognition, but most of all to gain knowledge. That didn't mean I wanted the limelight or the fame that came along with the power though. Oh no, I learnt my history and my politics better than any other Slytherin. Most of the time, the person who holds the most power is the man behind the scenes, the puppet master hidden by a velvet curtain of darkness manipulating and holding the reins. That was what I wanted. I fought my battles from the shadows, striking when least expected and leaving as little a trail as possible. It was all that was good enough for me. All I deserved. &

*I learnt that day. I took chances when I could afford to, stealing more food here and there, running away when Vernon and Petunia weren't around before Dudley could catch me. I thought that something within me was just not right, that I was the abnormal freak and I should take what they gave me. I mean I didn't really get hit that much. Just some smacks and cuffs when they were in a bad mood or Aunt Petunia would shake the frying pan at me, the worst was Dudley teasing me and getting me into trouble or his bouts of Harry hunting but, that was normal. For me at least. That was how I grew up. My formative years as psychoanalysts would say. *

/Now I'm bathed in light,
Something just isn't right./

& Now, I'm a hero, the spy who helped Harry Potter win the war. I am not as despised as I was before but people still fear me. Good. I liked it that way. What bothers me is that with Harry in my life, I am no longer in the shadows. His presence dispels all darkness from the vicinity. My fear is that of T. S. Eliot as he wrote it in his poem the Hollow Men. /Eyes I dare not meet in dreams, In death's dream kingdom, These do not appear, There, the eyes are, Sunlight on a broken column/ I fear he will one day wake up and see the broken man that I am, useless legs, dying neurons, aging faculties. A stone column that once stood proud and strong in the shadows is revealed in his light to be broken and decaying. &

*When I came to Hogwarts, well, people talked to me, were friends with me, gave me knowledge of my family, gave me things and love, treated me as if I was normal. But I knew it, I knew I wasn't normal. I was the freak. I couldn't really figure it out at first. Why were they giving me all this attention? I didn't have chores, no work other then what any normal child was expected to do, what was it I needed to do to repay them for taking me in? For putting up with my freakishness? It was only late in my first year that I figured it out. I was needed to kill Voldemort. That was why they treated me so nicely. Nothing so easy or mundane as everyday chores for Harry Potter, the freak extraordinaire. No. All the favours, all the wonders, it was for a bigger purpose. I was a freak after all. It was a total opposite of what I was used to with the Dursleys. There I was chucked into the cupboard, they were ashamed of me, and I had been hidden in the darkness to fester in my own abnormality. Here, I was thrust into the limelight, pushed out there like a shield they could hide behind. As long as Harry Potter was around, Voldemort couldn't touch the wizarding world, not really. I was their false sense of security, the puppet thrown out to the hordes, like a scarecrow is used to scare away the crows, I was stuffed with visions and thoughts that I was worthy and wonderful. The crows of the wizarding world were the Death-Eaters. Boo....*

/I'm under your spell./

& And yet, I refuse to leave now before the hurt grows worse. Reflexes and walls I had spent years building up have crumbled and fallen at his feet, at one glance from his eyes. The entire wizarding world claims he is their saviour and is all-powerful because he rid the world of Voldemort. I call him my saviour and know he is all-powerful because he managed to trap the elusive beast that I am. &


*Then came the lessons with you. The magic you taught me, the chastisement, the scolding. You didn't see me as a freak. You saw an obnoxious brat who like the other brats around him refused to study and work hard and instead preferred to focus on Quidditch. The hours you drilled me in protection, shields, it wasn't because you didn't want me to die before I served my purpose but because you didn't want me to die, full stop. As I learned the spells, I learned I was not a freak. At least not in your eyes. I was not famous, not a burden, only an annoying, irritating, lazy boy who needed to learn how to protect himself from the big bad enemy who's out for his blood. Literally. How did you do that? I have no idea. Years of conditioning, mental, emotional, physical, all destroyed in the flash of your black eyes as they glared at me. I was caught and ensorcelled. *

/How else could it be,
Anyone would notice me./

& Now, by his side I am welcomed into any home, anytime. I went from nearly being kissed by a Dementor to being kissed by Harry Potter. Sometimes I wonder which one is the better bargain and if I got the short end of the stick. A Dementor steals your soul with a kiss. Kissing Harry makes me give him my soul deliberately and whole-heartedly. Both have that ability as it is in their nature. Dementors definitely do not ask politely for their victims soul. They take it whenever possible. Harry, he doesn't even realize that he has my soul much less think that he might get it if he asks for it. &

*It wasn't the magic spells that convinced me, nor the words that you said. No. It was the care and the love that shone through your eyes whenever I had done something stupid and vexed you so much. It was the emotion I seemed to spark within you, a man who by all accounts is heartless, incapable of human emotion. I mean, to me, it was an epiphany. If you, a man full of honour, full of respect, powerful and self sufficient, if you could love me, notice me, love me, that meant I was something. It meant that I wasn't the freak that I had thought I was. Why would someone so intelligent as you, someone so remarkable, love a freak? It couldn't be pity. No, you didn't do pity. And I knew you saw me as who I was and not the image others saw in my visage. No. I had to be something, someone, if I managed to make you love me. *

/It's magic I can tell.
How you've set me free,
Brought me out so easily./

& One thing though, after kissing a Dementor, you don't know anything anymore and are blissfully unaware. In the presence of a Dementor, all happiness is sucked out of you like the moisture from a prune. Harry, well, kissing Harry transports you to another world where bliss is absolute and all encompassing. His presence brings happiness, sappy and totally unlike me but like I said, it's magic. &

*Somehow, you, stern, greasy, ugly, old you managed to bring me out of my shell. You taught me not to hide my feelings or myself just because others expected differently of me. You showed me that I could be Harry, just Harry without worrying if anyone else would hate me or think that I was a freak. It was magic I tell you. A spell of some sort that you used to make me feel secure and safe in your arms, and in my own skin. *

/I saw a world enchanted,
Spirits and charms in the air./

& I saw this whole world filled with love. The magic and wonder a simple yet mysterious feeling can cause fascinated me. Love can make a person feel on top of the world. It makes people think anything and everything is possible. I saw people all around me falling in love, being loved, loving... Black and his wolfmate Lupin, Lily and Potter, the love of friendship between the 'marauders'... I can still remember the first time I saw love at work. Arriving at platform 9 and 3/4's and watching the parents crying, worrying, loving. Mine, well, my parents forgot I was leaving that day. My tutor gladly shipped me off though, he told me they were too busy to see me and that I shouldn't burden them with my presence. &

*I remember when I first came to Hogwarts, no, when Hagrid first turned up at stone hut in the middle of the sea. I told him I was just Harry but he said no. I wasn't just Harry. I was Harry Potter and I wasn't a freak. I was someone special. That day turned into this new beginning for me. it showed me a world that I had only dreamed of before. A world where I was not considered a freak. Not abnormal but accepted. Of course all of that changed when I found out that I was a freak. Maybe not one people locked away in the cupboard but one where I could, was expected to destroy a Dark Lord and speak parseltongue and save the world. Still, I remember that day when I walked down Diagon Alley and saw the wonders of magic and wizardry. The spells being woven and the smell of potions in the air. That was special. *


/I always took for granted,
I was the only one there./

& It was because I saw the strange emotion people call love all around me and yet couldn't feel it, would never experience it, I believed that I didn't deserve it. It was as if I was standing inside a sphere, in a separate world of my own where no one could love me and I would never know anyone well enough to love, to ever be so audacious as to presume to love anyone and torture them with my presence. I didn't need it. I had lived for so long without love and yet was still breathing. No one cared or even thought about it. I needed only me to subsist. &

*I thought that I had lost that day forever. I thought that I was not going to be able to appreciate that wonder and that enchantment properly ever again because I was once more, a freak. Everyone around me was able to play, and be children, to learn and make mistakes. My mistakes could cause the destruction of the world and were too expensive to be carelessly made. No. I had to grow up alone from my friends. And I was alone. No one else understood. That it was not a blessing to have the fame or the power. It was a curse. *


/But your powers shone,
Brighter than any I'd known./

& And yet, the day you came into my rooms, demanding to be taught, weakened by the nightly tortures you faced in the throes of sleep, that's when the power of your magic managed to crack the sphere of coldness surrounding me. It was as if I had been in darkness all my life but time spent with you, learning you, being with you, you shone through and became my light. My sun. It was as if the black hole of my soul suddenly exploded and became the galaxy which orbits around your star. &

*You saw it though. You saw the curse and you thought you had to teach me that it was not something to play around with but carried with great responsibility. Like a burden. You saw it and you tried to teach me. I know. I saw your understanding during those sessions we had training. During the talks and the glares and the tirades about my ineptitude. That helped. It helped when I knew that you understood and you would help me learn and grow and help me shoulder this burden I was laden with when I was only fifteen months old. You were the light at the end of the tunnel, the carrot at the end of the stick which I fought for. Struggled to reach and gain. My reward, my light. *

/I'm under your spell/

& Yes, your magic, your aura, you cast something on me that day and everyday ever after. I am tied to you, forever...&

*You granted me insight into magic and by doing so ensorcelled me with chains around my heart and soul. Tying me to you, making me crave that look in your eyes, your approval, your understanding, your love. Potions master, you are a potion yourself. A love potion that I am addicted to. *

/Nothing I can do,
You just took my soul with you./

& There is nothing I can do to break the ties, nothing I want to do. Like iron to the strongest magnet, wherever you are, my soul is. Impossible to separate, impossible to prevent. &

*I cannot help myself. I tried to break away. That was what Draco was. I tried to find someone else, to fight it, to not give in. I told myself countless lies, half truths. Saying that I didn't need you. That you and I were over, just like the war. I kept leaving on missions, taking long missions just to fight harder, to get further away. But how far can a person go without their heart? Their soul? Like a trained pet I kept returning. Unable to help myself and stop the compulsion. I am yours. *


/You worked your charm so well,
Finally I knew everything I dreamed was true,
you make me believe./

& It took me so long to believe that it had really happened to me. That I had really fallen in love. All my life, no matter how many times I told myself I would never be able to, I still dreamed of it. Knowing that something is out of your reach is not the same as not wanting it still, not hoping, wishing, dreaming, yearning for it. My mind and mental faculties have always been organized and controlled. My heart however, and the elusive part of me they call my sub-conscious, those have always been out of my control. I had been able to suppress but never fully snuff out. And then, one day, you came to me and somehow, you managed to make me believe that I could love and be loved. Seeing you standing there at the door, seeing the love in your eyes, calling out to me, drawing me in. Yes...&

*I remember reading this sonnet by Shakespeare in one of Dudley's books when I was locked in the bedroom one summer. It moved me deeply and struck a chord within me, my idea of love stems from it. It made me wish, properly down on my knees and beg type of wish, to one day find that kind of love. To feel it and to have someone love me like that. Even while wishing though, I doubted ever being able to find love like that. Not ever being worthy. Who could ever love a freak like me? You made me believe though. You and that sonnet. It goes something like /My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,/ and continues on listing all the imperfections of his love. It was the ending couplet which tore it all apart. /And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare, As any she belied with false compare/ The ability to love to me, is not seeing someone for all that is good and perfect but seeing someone with all their flaws and imperfections and yet finding love in those flaws, loving them because of the flaws and not in spite of them. To me, that is love and whenever I see Severus, it feels as if Shakespeare had his own Severus about whom the poem was written about. I see him whenever I read the sonnet or think about it. I kind of like the connotation. My mistress. My dark mistress. Yes... I see those flaws shining out to me whenever I look at you and I just want to drown in them. Moreover, I know you see my flaws, my Gryffindorness as you call it. And you love me and cherish me for it. *

/The moon to the tide,/

& Just as the moon pulls the tide and attracts it, so your love, your eyes, your breath, your very essence calls to me, pulling me into you and you into me. It is natural, entirely uncontrollable, inevitable and constant. It is us. &

*I used to stare up at the moon at night. Especially my first few years at Hogwarts. It felt so different, so good to be able to look out the window and see the stars and the night instead of the dusty cobwebs that lined the bottom of the stairs in my cupboard. And when I found out about Voldemort and the war as well as my role in it, I told myself it was destiny. And that I couldn't change it, just like the tide is unchanging. I think our love is like that too. The first time I saw you and got that tingle in my scar. It was like destiny was telling me that you were the one for me. The other half. *

/I can feel you inside./

& As I lie under you, feeling you moving within me, I feel every atom of you melting with mine, bonding, merging, we are one. Our essence mixing together, forming anew, combined forever. Yes, move... harder... faster... join us... inside....&

*You are apart of me. The lessons you taught me over the years, the emotions you evoke in me, a scent, look, touch, sound. Every time I see something, hear something, it all reminds me of you. I live and breathe you. You are not an extension of me. You are me. Just like I am you. It is as if all I am is a shell, a skin worn by you. Your soul at least. I'm Severus Snape wearing a Harry-coat. Weird, but it describes what I am feeling. You were there for such a large part of my life, played such a huge role. You were my teacher, Potions master, protector, friend, lover, enemy, spy, traitor, supporter, mentor. All pivotal roles in my life and you were there when I needed it the most. You shaped me into what I am today. And I feel you inside of me, everyday, all the time. *


/I'm under your spell.
Surging like the sea,/

& Yes... I can feel my blood boiling, roiling, my cells calling out to you, rising up, surging... Yessss.... I hit the peak and am stranded there for an impossible infinity. &

*And the rhythm we fall into now as I slowly move within you, as constant and as real as the tide of the ocean. *

/Floating here so helplessly./

& And then the moment was lost, I was falling, floating, drifting slowly back to solid ground. And yet that was not the end of it. Submerged in the waters of your love I was swept up in the current, rising again to the peaks, then floating, falling....&

*With you I feel as if I'm flying without a broom. Floating in the air as we move together, raw, unstoppable and eternal. *


/I break with every swell./

& The wonder of it all was so profound I did something I hadn't done for a very long time. I cried. Tears slowly tracked down my lined face as I crested the wave again and again. Amazing... wondrous.... There were no words to describe it...&

*And yes... I... melding with you, cumming in you... yess.... oh it feels as if you break me and then put me back together again... splitting me up into tiny little atoms and rearranging it all together again to form a better me, to form an us....yess.....*


/Lost in ecstasy,
Spread beneath my willow tree./

& For once I was lost, my reasoning, my good sense, all floated away from me... My mind shut down and I gave up fighting. No more fears, no more sorrow, all washed away by your loving. Just as the Whomping Willow protected Remus's secret and gave him a place where he could transform in safety, you are my willow tree, allowing me to be myself and be safe, loved, protected. &

*Oh yes.... The little death they call it..... Dying in your arms nightly, forever more. You are my willow tree, the tree of enchantment, symbolizing birth and death. Killing me and reviving me all in the same act of love. Yes.... My Severus... my love.... *

/You make me complete.
You make me complete.
You make me complete.
You make me complete./

& I finally understand it all. You complete me. As corny, as cliché, as Gryffindor as it sounds, you are the other half of me, and when you are with me, we are finally joined so much so not even a crack can be seen. No imperfections, no irregularities, nothing. Just sheer perfection and completely natural. Us. Together. Forever. No longer separated.&

*No more absences, no more long missions. I won't leave your side again for a long, long time. You are me as much as I am me. I know, incoherent and ineloquent as usual but it works. It's me, and it's you. It's us. The part of me that was missing and yearning to be found was you and now, we are as one. Complete, together, forever. *

Both men finished their lovemaking, not a word having been said even after all of that, the only noises made throughout it all were unintelligible, grunts and moans, cries and sobs, incoherent mumblings and screams. All that needed to be said was said with their eyes, green staring into black the whole time, never looking away, never closing till now. Sated, they spooned together all worries of the future quelled and forgotten. Severus Snape and Harry Potter fell asleep, letting slumber bring the new day closer, the dawn of their new life and love beginning.

The End