A/N: Ok, this chapter is a little darker than some of the others, I think … at least the second half of it is. It's a little thrown together, really, the last two scenes are the reaction before the action, the depressed calm before the storm. Or something. But please bear with me.

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BLOODLUST Chapter 4

Harry immediately stiffened, startled at the feel of someone's lips other than Draco's on his own. They were rougher than his lover's. Snape was staring at him over their mouths. His expression was surprised, shocked at himself, but at the same time there was a kind of helpless enjoyment, a terrible disinclination for their lips to part.

It was a complete stalemate. If Harry tried to move, Snape would too, and things would get very awkward as they both tried to deal with what had just happened. And guilty as Harry felt, ashamed as he was at allowing Draco to be betrayed like this, he was strangely reluctant to break the kiss. The unmentionable crossed his mind – that he was enjoying it. Snape's mouth was so much more experienced than his own … Harry, for the first time, was kissing a fully-grown man, wiser, more knowing, and who knew what he was doing. It sent an exciting thrill down Harry's spine, and instinctively he relaxed his mouth and allowed his lips to part.

Snape's eyes widened as he felt Harry accept him, grew wide with shock and fear, and something that looked like stunned desire. Then he closed his eyes and slipped his tongue into Harry's mouth with a low cry.

Harry suddenly became very aware of Snape's weight on his body. It was comforting and firm, but helplessly demanding more, and the effect it had on Harry's body made him bite his lip to keep from moaning.

'Harry.' Snape broke the kiss and spoke hoarsely. 'If you don't want … don't … don't do anything you'll regret … please.'

'No, I'm – I'm¾' Harry didn't know how to describe exactly how he was feeling. He knew that he might well not look back with pleasure at whatever he was about to do … but it was not enough to make him stop, and soon he gave up and kissed Snape fiercely.

After a minute or so, Snape raised his hand, and locked the door to the dungeons with a few forced words. Harry's intention in those seconds was to gasp Snape's name, to plead with him to continue.

Unfortunately, he was totally unsure what to call the man. I am kissing someone whom I hate. Should it be Snape? Severus? Professor? It was a ridiculous crisis, and Harry stifled a slight snigger at himself instead of pronouncing anything. He closed his eyes in amazement, felt Snape's mouth touch his, and then let himself vanish into the embrace, the two pressing together with every muscle straining to be nearer.

But when a hand crept down between their bodies, and began to unbutton Harry's trousers, he started violently, and dragged himself out from under the Potions Master. 'Snape!' he exclaimed. This was not what he wanted, surely. He hated Snape; he always had. Why had he allowed himself to be drawn in for those minutes?

Snape was sitting on the floor, looking a little confused, and very guilty. 'Harry, you … you said¾'

'I know what I said,' Harry replied quietly, 'and I was wrong. I don't want this … and you'll regret it if you do it. Or if you try to rape me.'

Snape flinched, his eyes growing wild with the knowledge that he would have done it, under the obsidian. Harry felt a little guilty at this – he had meant to stop Snape very definitely, but perhaps he had been a little harsh. 'Sorry,' he added reluctantly. 'It's just¾'

'I know,' Snape murmured. 'I know. I shouldn't have … taken advantage. I … I apologise.'

'No, you don't understand!' Harry burst out. 'Snape … it's not that I don't – that I wouldn't … I'm seeing someone. I can't betray … him.'

Something flickered in Snape's eyes. 'Ah.' He rose, and went to sit on his desk, depositing the hematite next to him with a pale hand. He looked at Harry for a long time, and finally smiled faintly, bitterly. 'You'd better go, then.'

Harry let his eyes linger on Snape's face for the moment, trying to convey the deep regret, the confusion and guilt, that he was feeling. Then slowly he turned away and, gathering up his things, quietly left the room.

As he hauled his feet over the steps up to the main level of the school, he sighed shallowly, not bothering to try to express his unease with air.

Everyone was at lunch. Only two people in the whole school were alone. And an uncertainty lingered in the minds of both, a wondering whether perhaps, in the grey neutral world of the hematite, they should be together.

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Draco could look read his lover's mind.

He could watch him for a mere second, observe the tilt of his head, the pace of his words, a minute tightening around the eyes, and instantly determine what Harry was thinking, feeling. Draco had spent more than five years watching him; now he knew him better than he knew himself.

Since breakfast that morning, he had noticed a change in Harry. His countenance was disturbed, frightened by something deeper than a simple forgotten homework, deeper than lust or pleasure could snatch away. Last night Harry had been distracted … it had taken one of Draco's less subtle games to claim his attention. And in Potions, when he had made the fake jibe … Draco shivered as he remembered how cold and distant and secretive Harry had looked. His mouth twisted bitterly. His lover was experiencing something, something terrible, alone, and he was afraid, afraid, so afraid that a hiss of steam could jolt and scare him. It was clear that he could not confide in Draco; Draco suspected that this meant he had not confided in anyone.

Unless it was something to do with him.

The possibility began to creep into Draco's vulnerable mind, and silently took root.

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The perfectly timed clock in the dungeons clanged discordantly, and the wrecked harmonies shivered in the heavy, smoky air. Nine o'clock.

Severus gazed at the hematite, coldly, accusingly. You did this.

The stone did not reply. Severus laughed without humour.

Harry had not strayed from Severus' thoughts that afternoon, and Severus had found himself reliving that kiss even while lecturing and deducting house points. When he was unoccupied, he brooded constantly. He had even gone so far as to look into the liquid mirror again to try to know himself. He never looked at it unless his Master's control was approaching. Then he needed the mirror to remind himself that he was human, that he could feel and think and act in a normal fashion, that he was something more than a bloodthirsty servant.

He slammed his hand over the hematite, and the past overtook his fleeing deliberations.

Voldemort smiled cruelly. 'Severus, you disappoint me. Through your lack of sense I have discovered how much you have told them about us, about our intentions. You are a disloyal man, Severus. I am exceptionally disappointed.'

The waiting was fearful. Severus' head would not still, kept flicking its thoughts one way or another, wondering how he was to die, desperate worry for Dumbledore and the rest of Hogwarts, terrible guilt for the mistake that had alerted his Master.

But he did not regret being a double agent. There had been thousands of lives at stake, but boil those away in the heat of intellect and the whole thing was a game, a game at which Severus was expert. The challenge had given him more enjoyment of life than any hope of love or forgiveness could. Yes, he was ready to die.

He stared at Voldemort, unflinching and strong and young, defiant. 'I am not guilty, Voldemort,' he spat. 'You are the traitor, not I.'

His Master raised an eyebrow. 'Not guilty, Severus?' he asked mockingly.

A cold fear began to expand in Severus' stomach. He was guilty about betraying Dumbledore and the Ministry. It was a simple guilt, without intricacy, and he could live with it. But Voldemort's power stretched far beyond the human capacity to handle. When Severus was a boy, under the influence of his parents, he had admired his Master's ability to manipulate.

Now he feared it.

'Severus, I am afraid that simple physical punishment would not do you much harm now,' Voldemort remarked. 'Perhaps we should give you your guilt.' A black rock appeared in his hand, and with a word he broke off a piece and threw it at Severus. 'Have it. Do not try to dispose of it; it will come back. Cherish it. It will give you experience beyond anything you have ever known.'

He began to turn away, then looked back. 'And forget about treason, Severus. It does no good. The obsidian will see to that.'

The liquid mirror had been purchased a week later. After the first demonstration of Voldemort's new control. The awful compulsion to slide his hand into his crotch, always with something sick at the front of his mind. Rape … torture … unmentionable. When he was sane, such things made Severus ill with memory. But in the red of the obsidian, the idea gave him release, and he relished it.

The mirror. It made him see things truly, not as he wanted them to be or wished they could be, or even imagined they were, but as they really stood.

And the obsidian. He had known that Voldemort harboured obsidian for his whole time in service. And his coveting of the DADA job rendered him well versed in the three stones of power. It had not taken him long to obtain the hematite to give him sanity.

But now the hematite had turned on him, it seemed. It agreed with the obsidian, that he really did want Harry. Although the obsidian told Severus to tear Harry apart, to ravish him until he died, the hematite said that this was an illusion, and exaggeration of Severus' desire for the boy.

How could it be that such a child could be desirable? He was barely sixteen. Not old enough for sex with another man, and certainly not old enough for Severus. Plus, it was illegal, and after Severus' confession of the Mark, the man was unwilling to defy the law again. But the law seemed ridiculous in the face of the raw lust Severus had felt. Even the thought of Harry shifted his loins. And he had not been purely aroused for years, if at all. Sex was a terrible thing in his background.

Voldemort had been right about the guilt, though. It was beyond anything the human mind could name, sickening, driving him mad. It took the strongest of liquid mirrors, and the most pure of hematite to keep Severus' soul intact.

Severus glanced at the mirror for truth … but it was red, and the obsidian danced in front of it. He whimpered, held by the bloody swirls, and then, helplessly, began to let his hand crawl across his stomach.

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A/N: Reviews, please? Thanks to all who have reviewed so far, by the way.