TITLE: Fragile
AUTHOR: Eledhwen
RATING: PG
DISCLAIMER: JKR's, not mine. Chapter headings are taken from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 'Sonnets from the Portuguese'.
FEEDBACK: angel_eledhwen@hotmail.com
NOTES: Fourth in the 'Sins of the Mother' series. This starts almost exactly where 'Out of Bounds' left off, and so will make little sense without reading the previous stories.
Written pre-OotP.
Thank you to everyone who helped me out with this – Obscurus, for telling me I could write a better story, and making me do it; Godless Harlot, Medea, Chrome Animagus and Isis for beta duties at various points; and to everyone who commented in rough draft on my LJ. This has taken me the best part of a year to write, and I don't know that I'd have been able to finish it without all the help.

***

Chapter One

VI
Go from me.

Harry hadn't realised it, but he must have moved towards Severus in his eagerness to prove his honesty, his utter belief in what he had just said. The movement had left them standing very close, the man glaring down into his eyes. Harry searched his face for something other than the words of cutting denial just uttered. He knew his face was probably showing the mixture of pleading and something close to anger he felt, and made no attempt to conceal it. He had nothing to hide from the man in front of him.

Severus, however, was hiding something. He knew it. The sheer tightness of the man's shielding proclaimed it, the studied blankness in his eyes that Harry had not seen there for some time now offering more fuel to the suspicion.

For a split second, he debated the options. He could accept it, walk away. Or he could push Severus just a little bit more; find out if it was really true. Being who he was, he knew there was only one decision he would be able to accept as he finally spoke. "I don't believe you." He took one more step, closing the distance between them and took the only action he could.

He pushed aside the insistent mental reminder that he'd never done anything quite like this. Before tonight, kisses on the cheek were the closest he'd ever come to what he now planned. Not allowing himself to be talked out of it, even by his own worries, he kissed Severus, shoving a hand into his hair to pull him down to the right level, giving him no choice in the matter. Damned man's too tall to make dramatic gestures comfortable, he thought dimly just before their lips met.

After that, he couldn't think at all, just concentrate on the feeling of having Severus' mouth against his. It was everything he'd dreamed of – and he had dreamed often in the last few weeks. It was perfection and insanity, fiery heat and slick moisture, and even in his most fevered imaginings he'd never thought that kissing could be anything like this. He closed his eyes so he could feel it better.

Severus gasped against his lips, and he couldn't help but take advantage of the opening, sweeping his tongue into the older man's mouth and exploring eagerly, if clumsily. It was hot and wet and wondrous. That was Severus' tongue stroking his with exquisite carelessness, Severus' scent of dust and soap surrounding him like a tangible thing, the taste of tea still lingering in both their mouths flavouring it. Tea would always taste of kisses in the future, he suspected.

//Oh god.// He couldn't distinguish whose thought it had been. It didn't really matter, he decided. This was all that mattered.

He felt in both body and mind the moment Severus surrendered fully and that long body relaxed against him. The subtle movement gave him a sustained contact that magnified every sensation, warmth down his whole body as the stony barrier of denial in the man's mind collapsed in acceptance of the undeniable rightness of this. He sensed the balance of the kiss shift a moment before Severus' tongue invaded his mouth. He let it in gladly, let the man explore as he had. He wasn't quite sure when their arms had gone around each other, but he was profusely grateful. He just knew that without that support he'd have been a puddle on the floor, albeit an extremely happy one.

//I love you.// That thought came from both of them, and he felt a shiver go through him at the realisation. He opened his eyes slowly and sighed into Severus' mouth, still on his. How long had they stood like this? No matter. He loved him.

Finally they broke apart slightly, breathing harshly. Severus' eyes were still closed.

"Lily…"

Shock and horror flashed through him, lightning-quick, promptly replaced by sheer burning anger, and not a little hurt.

He couldn't help or prevent his unconscious reaction, had he even wanted to. His hand came up of its own accord as instinctive rage flared up inside him, and he slapped the man – hard – across one pale cheek before he even knew what he was about to do.

***

Severus rocked back on his heels, more from the shock of the blow than the pain, though the blow had been more than painful enough. He could feel it reddening already, stealing the passion-flush from the rest of his face to leave his cheek even paler than usual around the strike. He stared blankly at the boy, not knowing what to say. Not knowing what he could say.

He was sure he looked just as shocked as Harry did, although he suspected probably without the hurt and anger that diluted the other emotion on the boy's face. "Fuck you," Harry said in a quiet, deadly voice before he turned on his heel and walked out, trailing almost visible anger, sorrow and injured dignity like a cloak.

Severus stood there for some time after the door closed behind him, questioning the surreal events of the evening. His thoughts and emotions uncharacteristically scattered, he lingered in the same spot Harry had left him, brooding over what it all meant. Wondering which part was right – the conversation, the kiss, the aftermath? – and which was horribly, completely wrong. More even than those, he wondered if there had been anything he could have done differently, and would he have, if he could?

***

Harry was practically seething with rage as he stalked out of the dungeons. How dare he have done such a thing? After a kiss like that, how could he have said her name? An urge to scream in frustration was rapidly growing in him. Or to punch a wall, claw at one of the smiling portraits, or any one of a thousand possibilities, as long as they gave him some outlet for the multitude of emotions that crowded his head and heart.

It had taken months for them even to become tentative friends, and that only with the 'help' of the bond. Had taken weeks after that for him to realise that it wasn't only friendship he felt, that he couldn't imagine going through the day without talking to Severus anymore, that he always wanted to be around him. That he wanted to touch, and be touched. Weeks more had been required for him to get up the courage to do something about it and then he had needed to wait for the right moment.

It had been right.

Or at any rate, that's what he'd thought at the time. But clearly, he'd been quite spectacularly wrong about something. There was a considerable amount of disgust in that thought, both at himself and at Severus, not to mention the whole impossible situation – well, it had turned out to be only too possible, but it was surely impossible to deal with.

More than anything else, the lack of knowledge infuriated and frustrated him. If Severus hadn't felt the same way about him, he could have at least tried to understand it. Maybe even somehow stayed friends, one way or another managed to convince him that it had all been a joke. Blamed it on the bond, perhaps, done something to ensure that they didn't destroy six months of truce and friendship with two simple actions and the far too complex feelings that motivated them.

But Severus had kissed him back. He'd felt what the man felt thrumming through his heart like a drug, and it was not simply friendship. That much he did know. And then he'd said her name and now he had no idea what the situation between them was. Had the feelings he'd sensed all been for her? Had he been imagining Harry was her? Or had they perhaps, even a little, been for him, too?

He still wants her. He lied to me. Then, of course, he couldn't get that thought out of his head. Had Severus really lied then? Did that mean he'd been lying about other things too? He could make no sense of the situation, and it wasn't making his mood any better.

When the first-year he passed in the second-floor corridor gave him a deeply worried look, he realised that he was half-growling. He clamped his lips tightly shut, and increased his pace. He had to get back to the Tower, back to his bed. Then he could shut the curtains, sit in the darkness and try and figure out what came next.

He was not jealous of his own mother, he told himself. It was just… just… Well, he supposed he wasn't 'just' anything, but he didn't have the words to express what he felt even to himself.

He strode angrily through the common room with barely a sideways glance, not even pausing to acknowledge his friends' greetings. He hardly noticed that Ron's attempt to stand in greeting was arrested by the look on his face, or the worried expression that crossed Hermione's, barely registered her turning to Ron and her concerned murmur. He couldn't bring himself to care very much at all about either.

When he finally reached the dormitory, he flopped face down onto his bed, which accepted the sudden weight with a protesting whisper of material, and wondered what he could possibly do. He inhaled as deeply as he could considering that his face was crushed into the pillow, smelling the clean, detergent smell. The house-elves must have changed the sheets that morning.

The whirl of emotions had abated not at all during the walk up from the dungeons, anger and frustration still paramount. He slammed his fist into the pillow, fingers clenched desperately tight, feeling the feathers crumple under the pressure. A still optimistic corner of him held on to the forlorn hope that the gesture would relieve a little of the tension that was threatening to spill out in any way he'd let it, some part of his mind still rational enough to choose it, rather than the wall, as his target.

His eyes prickled, tears threatening to overwhelm the little control he had left. He denied them an outlet. He would not let Severus reduce him to tears. If he'd lost everything else, he still had that much dignity. No matter how hurt he was. His thoughts wandered, seemingly unable to settle on any one path, remembering, speculating and more than occasionally simply wallowing in misery. It wasn't pointless self-pity when it was this justified, he told himself.

An indefinable period of time later, he was in the midst of the realisation that he would have to face the man tomorrow. The thought reminded him abruptly that the door between their minds was still open, although he was too overwrought to pay any attention to what he sensed from him. He slammed it viciously shut, half-hoping that the man would suffer the mental equivalent of trapping his fingers in it.

It was a futile act of defiance that made him feel no better once it was done, and he wondered how he was going to get through the next day, let alone the next year and a half. More than a year of this? There was just no way on earth that he'd be able to cope.

***

After some moments, Severus managed to force himself to walk over to the closest seat, the chairs they had been sitting in together not so long ago. Half-collapsing into the welcoming softness of his preferred seat, he wondered why his room felt so empty. Surely it had nothing to do with the realisation that Harry would probably never sit in the chair he had claimed again. Of course not.

He hadn't in the slightest intended for Lily's name to leave his mouth, or even his mind. It had just happened. Once he had given in to Harry's advance – a ridiculous loss of control, but there you were, far too late to do anything about it now – it had felt so like kissing her in the sheer wonder of it that he had been thrown back too many years.

He supposed it had been the right thing to do, at least. After all, it had seemingly freed the boy of his foolish notion of being in love with him, if the sting of his cheek and the flurry of angry, betrayed emotions in his mind could be taken as any indication of his feelings.

There was simply no reason for him to feel so regretful about it. Sad, even, at the way things had turned out. No reason, and no excuse at all. He had, he reminded himself, far more pressing concerns, but for the moment they meant little or nothing to him.

The fact that Harry had believed what he had said – I love you – held no meaning either, he told himself severely. He would far rather the boy had spoken it aloud if he had needed to express it so urgently, then he would have been able to tell himself there was no conviction behind it, ease the faint sense of guilt for the hurt he had caused in that way.

Still, he reminded himself, belief was not at all the same thing as truth. Their actions had been simply the action of the bond, or something else. Some strange thing that made a virtue of necessity, no doubt. In time the boy would no doubt be horrified at his actions. Until then, Severus would simply return to acting the man the boy had thought he was before all this, and soon enough he would leave. As if on cue, he felt the door between their minds slam closed, almost painful in the suddenness and violence of the gesture.

He sighed and assured himself that it wasn't his fault as he touched the slightly raised, doubtless still reddened spot where Harry had hit him. It was irrational to blame himself for not noticing the change in the boy's feelings, for not stopping it while there was still a chance, for losing control enough to kiss him and to make a confession of feelings he wasn't even sure he had, for saying a name that had no place between them. No, surely it was the boy's fault for having those feelings, and admitting to them. Lily's fault, for abandoning him, but not doing it nearly thoroughly enough, for pushing him and Harry towards each other. The bond's fault. Anyone's, anything's but his own. He wished he could be angry, but all he seemed able to manage was a general resentment at the bizarre set of circumstances that had led to this eventuality.

He shut the door on his side too, and refused to let himself regret his involuntary action. Actions. No, he decided, he'd just sit here for a while, look into the fire, and remember what it had been like, with her. What it might be like to love him, if he let himself. He would not let himself.

He pushed away the thought that it might just be too late.