Hiding Under the Ninth Earth
Book 02 : A Bit Of All Right
by I Got Tired of Waiting

Part IV : Resolution
Chapter Thirty Seven : Cacaphony

10 July 2003

Arthur paced from frame to frame, keeping Severus silent company through his long walks about the castle. Severus didn't speak to him, just bowed as he always did to acknowledge his presence upon arrival and in leave-taking. Arthur didn't mind. He'd heard from Phineas the seriousness of the problem weighting his friend and was content to walk with him in case he needed to talk. Besides, he had his orders from Dumbledore and Merlin, not that he wouldn't have done it without them.

Every night now, for the last several days since he'd talked to Albus, Severus had risen from his cold bed after Harry was asleep and prowled the hallways, unseeing of his surroundings, unaware of anything other than his thoughts. He'd decided early on not to go talk to Cerise, although for the life of him, he didn't know why; she'd always been a stalwart companion to him in the past. He suspected, though, it might have something to do with the sharp edge of her tongue and how well she wielded it when she was annoyed with him; he didn't have any resistance to it right now and already knew how foolish he was, or so Albus had already told him. Her haranguing him, at this point, would be of no help to him whatsoever.

Excepting Arthur, his constant sentinel, the solitude had felt right.

With nothing resolved and less understood, he'd stumble to their rooms near dawn and fall senseless into sleep until noon. Severus was grateful he had no students for the summer school classes until late August and his little nagger told him Dumbledore had planned it that way on purpose. He still hadn't figured out why he had this compulsion to haunt his old habits, but it did ease his mind somewhat even as it frustrated him.

Severus had thought long on Dumbledore's words and realised he was no closer to reconciling them now than he was the day they were uttered. The only clear concept he had was that if he wanted to break this unproductive cycle, which he desperately did, he--they--needed to get out of the castle and go somewhere far away. A break of place just might give him the distance he needed to finally comprehend what had happened and what it was doing to his life now. He'd briefly considered using the trip the staff had given him as a birthday present to do just that, but realised they needed more than a weekend to resolve this. No, it needed time as well.

While his problem before had been his cold bed, he realised he was now creating the same problem for Harry; they'd not touched since the day after Harry had 'confessed' his transgressions. His delay was hurting them both and yet he was helpless to stop it. They went through their daily routines, polite but distant--he was unable to look Harry in the eyes sometimes and found it painful to see the anguish in Harry's face when he thought he wasn't looking. However, under the circumstances, he was unable to do more, to give Harry the reassurances (or anything else for that matter) he needed.

He ached for Harry sometimes. Not for the sexual side of their relationship, although that tension was building within him, the chastity self-imposed. No, he missed the closeness, the feeling of Harry's arms around him, the warmth of his breath on his back as he slept, knowing he was always there for him. He missed the laughter, the spontaneous kisses Harry would give him just because, the kind regard and the little gestures that had always made him feel safe and warm.

Harry's eyes haunted him. He remembered the first time he'd really seen them and his shock when he'd seen his reflection in them. Not the tiny mirrors showing his face swimming in pools of green, but the realisation of how those eyes and the person behind them had moulded him into the loved person Harry saw with them. He wanted to hold Harry, love him, stay with him--he just wasn't sure if he could.

He was helpless at this point to stop the estrangement. His honesty demanded nothing less from him for he knew, right now, he could not return the loving gestures with the same spirit as they were given to him. An integral piece of him was broken--his trust, never easily given, was so profound, so deep with Harry. He'd never opened to another human being like he had with him and Harry's deception was tearing his insides to shreds, for to him love and trust were the same thing. Now he was closed again. Like a clam under attack, his self-preserving instincts prickled; he needed to find a way to reopen a place for Harry. The only thing giving him hope was that he wanted to, needed to, he just didn't know how.

While he conveniently skirted his own breach of faith, he knew that if he did not come to grips with the whole situation very soon, he was going to lose his lover forever. His sense of urgency keen, the thought of life without Harry made him die inside; the reality of living with him made his heart ache.

So he walked with silence, his rambling thoughts and Arthur his companions. Tonight, just like last night and the nights before, would probably be no different than tomorrow night. Except this evening he was wearier than normal, both in body and spirit. He supposed if he were the type of person who got their jollies with self-diagnosis he would label himself with 'despondent' and 'depressed'. He decided he'd done all he could this night.

Earlier than normal, he was rounding a corner on his way back to his chambers when he noticed someone walking next to him, one moment absent, the next there. It was Poppy, probably the last person he would have expected to see. He waited to see what she wanted to talk to him about, but she was silent, content to just keep him company if he so desired. He realised he was not the only one who knew how to wield silence; he debated waiting her out.

He finally threw up his hands in disgust. "All right, I give up, Poppy. What do you want?"

"I want nothing, Severus," she said with a secret smile. "I could ask you if you know what you want?"

Arthur stopped and watched with sharp interest.

'Oh good gods, here we go again,' he thought, tired of talking about it. "I just want the truth," he replied honestly.

"What is the truth, Severus?" she asked, glancing sideways at him as they walked.

"Even you cannot be that obtuse, Poppy. The truth is the truth. It is what it is," he exclaimed, exasperated.

"Really? I wonder--is it? Is the truth a lie to the person you are telling it to, if they don't believe you're telling them the truth? And does the truth, which has become a lie because of it, carry any less or more weight than an actual lie to the person who believes it not?" She waited patiently, knowing it was convoluted.

Was it? It was--and it wasn't--depending on the viewpoint of the person receiving the truth--or telling it. Damn, who knew she ran this deep? He replied, impatient but without rancor, "All right, you've made your point. It's about perspective. What about it?" He suspected he would not like the answer.

She stopped and faced him. "Are the lies of omission Harry told you any less serious in their magnitude than the countless omissions you yourself have made to him about things just as personal?"

Severus squirmed inside--he'd purposely avoided looking at this. "I think you're splitting hairs here," he answered evasively. "The two circumstances are entirely different."

She laughed. "Oh absolutely, I agree. Harry's concerned his future. Yours delved into your past. Totally different."

She lowered her head to look at the floor, hiding her smile, and regarded him from under her lashes. He was reminded of all the females he'd known in his life who had worn that look to gauge a man's reaction whether they were coyly flirting with, or dropping an unpalatable 'truth' on, the man to whom they bestowed it. Given that he could not imagine Poppy ever flirting with anyone and certainly not with him, he suspected she was about to get unpleasant.

He was therefore not surprised when she blithely continued, "Are the half-truths you've perpetuated about your past life, your past relationships any less blameworthy than his hiding his future to you? Have you not made him miss out on as much of your life, your motivations, as he has deprived you of his? Are you not just as guilty of fearing his reaction as he fears yours? Have you told him how much you care; what coin you've paid for the privilege of being with him? How you almost died inside when we thought he had? Are you each not afraid to lose the other?"

Severus didn't reply; he reckoned she'd not really expected him to. He compressed his lips, struggling to hold back his sharp retort for her to mind her own business.

Her soft voice chastised him. "Did you both not have the right to react to the other's challenges, the same right to refute them? Do you both not face the same fears of retribution, and the same fears of rejection? I assure you, Severus, the risks you took at The Veil were far more numerous than the risks Harry took with his studies. Fie on you, Severus. You're a fine one to take him to task when your attempts to retrieve Sirius bore as many consequences. Harry deserved to know when you took such risks and had the same right you believe you had to try and talk you out of it. And failing that, to say goodbye."

Her face very serious, she continued, "Harry was wrong not to tell you his fears. He was wrong not to face up to them, to you, and admit himself the fool. And yes, he was very wrong to perpetuate a lie that robbed you of two years of his life, and in a large manner, two years of your own. However, you are wrong in not telling him why you act the way you do. Why you push people away. Why you protect him the way you do. Why the ones he loves are the ones you cannot abide. Why it is so hard for you to trust. What trust means to you. How much you trust him. That you love him. You can't even say the words to him, can you?"

He hated it when she was right. Severus glared at her.

"Oh leave off, Severus. I've seen better glares out of First Years. Come to think of it, that's when I first saw yours." She chuckled at his discomfort. "It seems to me, you both have confessions to make and reparations to make to each other. And I suggest you start doing it soon. The number of complaints we've been receiving from the house-elves about dusting the back corridors is getting quite oppressive."

Admitting defeat in the face of her logic, he swept her a bow. "What would you suggest, oh wise and great one?"

He knew she would not resist the urge to tease him. "Well, will wonders never cease? About time you reckoned my true worth, Severus." She regarded him kindly. "I would suggest a holiday away from Hogwarts. Perhaps something for Harry's birthday which is coming up soon, although I expect you already know that."

Severus snorted. "Irony is a strange thing. I was just thinking the same thing when you joined me." He knew he probably shouldn't ask, but did so anyway. "Any suggestions?"

"Actually yes, I have just the spot--remote, benign, and safe--it's a place for lovers and reconciliation. Muggle, of course, but with a magic all its own."

Benign? Safe? He wondered if there even such places left in the world, Wizard or Muggle? And where are the strings attached to your little gift? Scepticism laced his voice as he asked, "And where would this 'special' place be, dear Poppy?"

Her eyes sparkled with outright mischief. "Now that would be telling. I think I'll keep it as a little surprise. Don't worry so, Severus. I'll make all the arrangements. All you need to do is pack and be ready to go on the appropriate day. Consider it my birthday present to you both since I missed yours."

"You'll probably send us to Siberia," he groused.

"Hardly. Albania, maybe--I hear it's lovely this time of year." She chuckled at his dazed expression.

She sobered and fixed him with a piercing gaze. "Severus, take this time away. You need to honestly look at the situation and ask yourself if it is worth a lifetime of pain and loneliness just to assuage a wounded ego for mistakes made in youth--both yours and Harry's. Must I painfully remind you of Mecadia and the consequences of not loving enough and fully? Or Lucius and the lessons of true betrayal?"

He shied away from her words and the ugly images they provoked. He shook his head to her. No, she did not need to remind him--he regularly did that fine all by himself.

She put her hand on his arm, her eyes earnest. "Listen to me, Severus. If you've heard nothing else, hear this. When you get to be my age, you will look back on it and kick yourself for missing even one moment. Don't miss one day, one minute with someone you love. Once he's gone, he's gone. Pride is a fleeting thing; gone is forever and once past, it never comes back. Memory is a terrible substitute for a kiss or a touch. I know it sounds trite but old adages, just like old women, always have their basis in truth." She kissed him on the cheek and left him in the deserted hallway.

Well, not exactly empty. He glanced over at Arthur, still standing quietly in a portait of a professor dozing at his desk, a pile of parchments at his feet. Arthur threw his his head back to the side towards the man, his brows raised, eyes rolling, and grinned. Severus nodded, taking the hint, and after a small bow to him, made his way back to his quarters, the chuckles of an astute young king filling his ears.

****

Severus returned to their rooms directly. He hesitated and, looking at the clock, decided he had enough time to work on the lesson plans for the coming term before he went to bed. If he was going on an extended trip, he wanted to make sure he was caught up.

He lit the fire and, once blazing, he turned back to his desk, ready to work. He pulled the chair out and as he prepared to sit, a piece of parchment, folded in half, fluttered to the floor from its place on the seat of his chair. He knew without looking who it was from, Harry always left little notes on Severus' chair where he was sure to find them, separate from the chaotic mess that regularly covered the now pristine surface of his desk. He opened it with some anticipation; normally the notes were about inconsequential things, but with a cheery regard that always left him smiling. As he quickly scanned the lines, his stomach clenched and a sense of profound sadness filled him when he reached the end.

Severus:

I'm sorry to bother you, but do you have any Raven's Claw and Darrow Root you could spare? I tried getting some today from my supplier, but he said you'd bought the last of it and it will be a while before he gets any more in stock and no one else seems to carry either of them. I wouldn't ask it of you, but I need it for a potion for a private referral. If you have some you can spare, could you either let me know and I will collect it, or just leave it on my desk. I don't know your preference, but I can either replace your stock when it becomes available again or pay you for the amount I need: 3 Claws and 2 grams of the Darrow Root.

Thank you in advance,

Harry

Severus sat hard in the chair, stiff as his thoughts raced. Raven Claw? Darrow Root? He could think of no potions requiring them except a few dark ones bordering on light and used primarily for healing. Not an unusual request. All of them difficult to make, one of them downright dangerous. His first instinct was to tell Harry no, ask him which particular potion he wanted, and then offer to make it for him. After all, he was the Potions Master.

Then the whole import of it hit him.

No, what had his stomach in knots and his hands shaking was the tone of the note. Distant, professional--in other words perfectly polite and ordinary--except--except there was no Harry here. So much he'd missed. Did he know if Harry was ready to make such a potion? He must be or he wouldn't have asked. Or would he? Was he going to do something outside his abilities just to avoid him? Would Harry be that careless, that cruel? Should he trust him with it? Harry's words rolled through his mind, Poppy's echoing as a counterpoint, Albus' weaving a dissonance through them.

He couldn't, he just couldn't do this anymore. He'd always known his own mind, always known where he stood in his life, where he was going and this confusion, this--indecision--these feelings roiling inside him, his vague disquieting dreams all came to haunt him at once, with the words of his friends and his lover making a cacaphony within him. If he didn't resolve something soon, he knew he would shatter, disintegrate into a thousand little pieces that no one, not even himself, would ever be able to reassemble.

The parchment fell unheeded to the ground as he put his head on his arms on the desk and let it come crashing out of him, the rasping breaths devastating in their desperate silence. Shoulders heaving, he let his despair flow through him, let it, for one moment overtake him. There was no healing for him tonight, only for some unnamed persons who would take Harry's attention while all that remained for him would be the dregs of their relationship. He'd told everyone what he wanted, but could not find it in himself to believe it anymore.

When he thought it could get no worse, it did. The wracking pain shuddered through him when he thought of a life without Harry, what it would mean to ever be the recipient of cold cheerless letters, cold harsh bed sheets, and a cold empty heart. To go back to his joyless life, devoid of even a tiny shred of compassion from those around him, even from the one he loved the most. His only recompense the terror in the eyes of his students as he fell into his old lonely patterns, the avoidance of his colleagues when he could no longer stand their cheerfulness because it reminded him too much of how empty he'd become. Could he go back to that again? Could he really live his life alone again? Did he want to live it alone again? Would he have to live it alone again?

His desolation filled him, widening the cracks breaking everything he'd come to know. And when he'd almost accepted he could expect nothing more than what he had, because after all, who could truly want and love Severus Snape, salvation came in the feel of a pair of warm arms sliding down his own, the hands grasping his own hard, a familiar, loved body pressed against his back and side, the head, with its messy black hair and emerald eyes he couldn't see, but could envision in the greatest detail, settled its welcome weight on his neck. The arms tightened around him comfortingly, the hands stroking his now, as the hopeless grief continued to rip through him. And in between the wrenching sounds emanating from beneath his folded arms, his lover, his Harry spoke, his voice low and slow as if he wanted to make sure Severus heard every word. And he did, he could feel them reverberate through his nape and into his heart, making a new rhythm, a new song.

"Oh gods, Severus. I am so sorry. I would take it back, all of it, if I could. I would change it all. I am such a fool. I didn't mean to hurt you. It was never about you--it was always about me, and I'm sorry, so sorry. I can't say it enough and yet I know it won't bring it back--"

The steady stream of words, such simple words spoken softly with such honesty, the anguish in them a balm to his soul, melded with those spoken by the others until he began to see the other side of them, the messages of hope and love they'd contained, and woven through them all was the warm concern, the loving regard of the man who held him now. He felt calmer, more centered, perhaps even able to see a brighter side to this whole thing.

Finally purged, his face uncommonly hot and swollen, his awareness slowly returned to the world around him. Not at his desk anymore, but on the couch in the sitting room, his body lay loose across Harry's; he had no memory of moving here. It was an odd position. Usually he was the one lying with his head and back supported by the arm cushions, his arms which would wrap securely around his lover, his lips trailing random kisses in the hair below them.

But not tonight.

Tonight, his lullaby was the steady beating of Harry's heart beneath his cheek. His comfort in the embrace of arms and legs holding him fast. His peace in the words soothing him to dreamless sleep.

"I love you, Severus Snape." A kiss on his head bestowed a blessing. "I always will." A hand on his cheek, in his hair, gentled his fears. "You are my life and I will never forget that now." Severus' eyes grew heavy. "I take you as you are." His breathing slowed, the dawning sleep a welcome thing. A breath hitched above him. "I will never forget this, Severus. I will never forget how much pain I caused you with my foolishness. I don't think I can ever tell you just how sorry I am. Gods, how I love you."

Severus dreamed of nothing this night.

****

The next morning, Harry woke alone on the couch. Stiffly, he got up and, as he mindlessly went through his morning ablutions, he could feel the emptiness in the apartments that matched the emptiness in his heart. He didn't know what had awakened him from his depressed slumber last night, didn't know what had impelled him to throw the covers back in a rush and run into the sitting room, but one look at Severus at his desk had been all it took to send him flying across the room to do what he could to take away the palpable misery he'd caused.

His thoughts dark, he pushed aside the visions in his head of Severus at his desk, remembering instead, for just a small moment, the heavy weight of Severus on his body, watching the sorrow turn slowly into something else. Hope? Or was that too much to ask for at this time?

Time, he had to give it time, how ever much Severus needed to make his decision. He dodged his hopelessness, knowing he had to concentrate today, on his patient, on his potion. Potion. Damn, he still needed those last two ingredients. He started for his desk to get his notes on suppliers, determined that, even if he had to go to America, he was going to find those last two components he needed.

He stopped short in the doorway to his study. Two bottles awaited him on his desk. He rushed over to them, his heart pounding. They sat on a piece of parchment with a few short lines of Severus' writing. He picked up the first wide mouth bottle and smiled at the three large pairs of Raven's Claws; Severus had even known he'd needed pairs, not singles. He set it aside and looked at the second, smaller jar. Precisely measured were two grams of Darrow Root, not one grain more or less than he needed. He lifted the note, blinked hard to focus, and made out from Severus' unusually neat script:

I would prefer you replace the stock when you are able, Mr. Potter.

Severus

(If you are making the Veloxia Curatio Potion, mind the third step. Darrow Root this fresh can have quite a 'kick' to it, if you're not careful.)

Harry grinned through the tears threatening to spill. No, some things never changed. And he was grateful for it.

**** TBC ****