Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his universe belong to J.K. Rowling. The plot, tenuous as it is, is mine, and not related to any of my other stories. Also, this is a SS/HP slash story. You have been warned. :-)
Yes, it's been ages since I've updated anything, I know. Been thrown around a bit by R/L, but hopefully everything has at last calmed down, and if only I can regain my muse. So I thought I'd start sharpening my rusty fic skills with this story before tackling my bigger projects again…the first chapter should look familiar, but revised.
Into the Darkness
By Lady of Arundel
Another year, gone.
Having seen his charges safely off to the Hogwarts Express and having locked and warded the Slytherin dormitories for the summer, Professor Severus Snape returned to his private suite. Removing his teaching robes and carefully folding them over the back of the chair, he poured himself a well-earned tumbler of brandy, plucked a worn volume off an impeccably-kept bookshelf, and settled into his favorite armchair for a good read.
To be interrupted not five pages into the first chapter.
"Professor?"
Severus glanced covertly out of the corner of his eye, a motion barely perceptible through the curtain of black locks veiling his face. Few people knew where to even find the entry to his private residence, never mind how to surpass the wards. As if the hesitant voice hadn't given his visitor's identity away in the first place.
Harry Potter.
Young Harry Potter, newly-certified wizard just yesterday, now off to fight in the front lines of a war between Light and Dark older than he himself. Except Young Harry Potter was no longer young. No longer a weeping babe calling for freshly-slain parents. No longer a scrawny, starry-eyed child seeing the Great Hall for the very first time. And not entirely the shattered, broken sixth-year boy whom he had helped slowly piece together when no one else could, or would. The wizard hesitating in the doorway was just Harry Potter, a strong, beautiful, fragile young man of almost eighteen with the weariness and responsibility of men five times his age drawing premature lines around his eyes.
"I'm leaving now. I just wanted to…"
Severus leaned back in his chair, tilting his head back and pursing his lips ever so slightly. Harry trailed off, glancing down at his hands as soon as his now former professor met his gaze. One of Harry's newest tendencies, lapsing into silence, particularly when he had something important to be say. As if it weren't really important. As if he weren't really important. An exhausting argument had ten times over. Arching an eyebrow, Severus instead said nothing as he again took up the potions text.
The words, however, were blurred, his eyes fixed on the page but his attention focused on the slight form silently closing the door and tentatively crossing the room. Harry sat on the edge of his armchair's twin, entire body tense and his school trunk hovering in the air beside him. They sat in silence, Harry picking at the hem of his new battle robes as Severus pretended to ignore him.
It was Severus who broke the silence, which did not surprise either wizard. Harry had grown so much quieter and withdrawn no matter how much he…
"You are bringing your school trunk." A year and a half ago, had they been on informal speaking terms, the boy probably have responded with some sharp-tongued observation of how Slytherin of Severus to avoid the main issue at hand. The Harry of old would probably have had a point.
Instead, shoulders sagged a little as the now former seeker released the breath neither one of them knew he had been holding, visibly glad the professor had been the one to break the silence.
"Yeah, well…I know they recommended packing light-"
"They were right. You should."
"But…" More silence. Severus silently cursed himself for interrupting the boy now when he had finally begun to speak up.
"But?" Severus pressed, careful to keep his voice neutral.
He watched as Harry reddened and bit his lip, eyes refocusing on some abstract point just over Severus's left shoulder. Another new habit picked up during the previous year.
"I…I don't...it's all I have, sir, and I don't really have anywhere to store my school things. It's not much, so I thought it wouldn't be…not that I—" Harry abruptly cut off that last train of thought. Severus didn't prompt him, not wanting to pursue the thought either. Best ignore it, along with the tiny spring of panic in his heart that he had been studiously ignoring since the boy had enlisted in the war. Yes, then perhaps it would go away.
"Your relative's house, Mr. Potter?" Immediately regretting the question. Where was his mind today?
Green eyes held his a moment before looking away. "Aunt Petunia," Harry said slowly, left hand subconsciously rubbing at his right shoulder, which Severus knew for a fact had once been shattered by the boy's uncle in a drunken rage. Harry tried again. "She owled Professor Dumbledore earlier in the year, after the... Said that once I was out of school she wanted nothing to do with me, and to never to contact her again. Ever."
Severus watched Harry laugh, a low and self-depreciating sound. He hadn't known that. Why hadn't Albus told him? Why hadn't the boy told him? Severus opened his mouth, searching for the right words, but Harry waved him off, smiling the familiar haunting smile. "S'okay, really. I understand, really I do."
Severus wondered what Harry understood—why his only remaining family had disowned him, or why Severus after all this time still had to search for the right words?
"Anyway," Harry continued, "I didn't want to bother the Weasley's, they're tight for space already, even with..." Even with Percy Weasley missing for five months. "Now that..." Now that Hermione and her parents, high on the Death Eater's hit list for the double crime of being Muggles and of their association with Harry, had to move in with their soon-to-be-in-laws for protection. "I don't have time to go to Gringotts, I have to report for duty in under an hour—"The boy was rambling now, but Severus didn't mind and instead relished the sound of Potter's stumbling voice. Two years ago, who'd have thought. "I was thinking of asking Remus if he wouldn't mind letting me store things at his house, but I don't want to impose, it's really not that much to carry, not with a charm or two, and—"
"Harry." The boy jerked up his head, startled.
"You don't have to…" Severus began before trailing off, half hoping Harry would understand his unspoken words, when Severus himself didn't know what he wanted to say. Now the boy was rubbing off on him. Marvelous. Harry looked at him, confused yet expectant. "Never mind."
Another silence. Why didn't the boy just thank him and go, or just go. Leave him and Hogwarts so Severus could begin to forget that Harry bloody Potter every existed. As if he could. As if anyone could. Although the others seemed to do so well enough, when they had no use for their pretty little savior…
Again Severus spoke first, after refreshing his glass.
"You'll be seeing more of your godfathers, I suppose." Yes, safe ground. A safe conversation already had several times over. If Harry noticed he gave no visible sign.
"Yes, I've missed them. It'll be nice to spend some time with Sirius, if he's not too busy with everything, of course." Severus scowled into his glass.
"They'll be delighted to see you, I'm sure," Severus drawled, "Beside themselves." Leave it to Black to be unable to communicate how he felt about his own godson...and people said he was cold-hearted. Harry nodded half-heartedly, eyes again cast down at his lap. Severus sighed, unwilling to upset self-depreciating, self-destructive Harry Potter on the day he was going of to the war and out of Severus's life, once and for all, probably never to return—
Severus abruptly stood, banishing those thoughts for the second time in as many minutes, the potions text nearly knocking over the half-drunk tumbler. He swept across the room, secretly pleased with the steadiness of his step, and disappeared through one of the parlor's side doors long enough to retrieve the object he had placed by the door in anticipation that morning. Returning to the parlor he dropped it—nonchalantly, he hoped—in the boy's lap.
"What's this, sir?"
"A travel pack. Take what you need, Potter. Nothing valuable, nothing that you'd miss were it to be lost or destroyed. I shall hold on to the rest until your return." Harry looked horrified.
"Sir, before, about my trunk, I didn't mean that as...I didn't mean for you to take that as me asking you to…"
Now Severus impatiently waved off Harry's protests. "I didn't think you did, Potter." Harry nodded and tentatively set about sorting out the bare necessities as Severus again settled into his armchair, watching. James Potter's cloak, a sneakoscope, the pensieve Dumbledore had given the boy two summers ago, a changes of clothes, quills, ink, parchment, and a handful of other trinkets. As Harry carefully placed each item into his professor's kit, Severus levitated the nearly-empty trunk away.
"As I would someday like to regain the use of my storeroom, I expect you to come back for your things once you have fulfilled your obligations to the Effort, Potter." Come back home, Harry. Yes, come back, Harry, come back to me.
"Yes, sir."
With a flick of his wand, Severus summoned a small parcel from one of the bookshelves. Harry carefully plucked it from the air, looking at Severus questioningly but tucking it into the kit nevertheless when an answer wasn't forthcoming.
"You trust me."
Green eyes widened, but the answer was quick and firm. "Yes. Of course."
"You shouldn't." Of course the boy should, but old habits die hard. And the boy had to learn, lest he—
"I know, but I do."
"Then I've taught you nothing."
"No, you've taught me everything. Everything that's important. Which is why I..." That haunted smile again. "…why I trust you."
Severus snorted and retook his chair and book, avoiding Harry's eyes. He heard rather than saw Harry stand, slinging the kit over his shoulder but not moving to leave. At long last Severus glanced up, to find Harry standing awkwardly in front of him, shifting his weight from foot to foot, body taut from nerves.
Severus cocked an eyebrow.
"May I…I was wondering, sir, may I write you? While I'm away?"
Severus was startled. Of all things, that wasn't what he had been expecting. He suddenly realized he was nodding in assent when Harry's face lit up in a genuine smile.
"Thank you, sir. Really, for everything." Harry tightened the kit around him and, taking Severus's absent nod as a dismissal, crossed back to the door. He could hear Harry open the door and pause, his hesitation obvious even to Severus, who still sat in his chair with his back to the entrance, eyes squeezed shut.
"Goodbye, Professor Snape." Harry swiftly left, as if he didn't want to hear the reply.
The door swung soundly shut.
"Goodbye, Mr. Potter."
Once again, Severus was left alone.
TBC.