A/N : So I was cleaning out my folder, and I definitely accidentally deleted this chapter because it was hiding in my image folder :'(. I had to rewrite the whole thing. How tedious -.-. My friend got me Diablo for xmas… just so you know… that game is evil… it will take your focus from everything you want to get done. Never play video games… they will possess and destroy you.
Disclaimer : I don't own anything. Really. Not even this computer, its my dad's. I even stole a line about a "blue streak of recognition" from Angels in America : ) I just couldn't resist. It's my new obsession and I had to give credit where credit was due : )
SLYTHERIN BOYChapter Twenty-Three: Blue Streak of Recognition
Severus blinked at himself in the mirror. They'd finally let him leave the hospital wing a few days before. As a recovery gift, Albus had given him a dark violet set of robes and matching sweater. It was an expensive gift, but it had been too beautiful to reject. He adjusted the collar of the robes, wondering how Albus had managed to weasel him into wearing robes again. The old man was the most manipulative beast in the world.
He was to be meeting Krum today. He combed his dark, wet hair meticulously. Albus had advised him to go with his eyes naturally, seeing as Krum's message had informed him of a hock-eyed boy. They wanted no confusion on that matter, apparently.
Severus swallowed. He looked at his hollow face. He looked gaunt and tired. He ran his fingers into his sleeve along the skin of his arm. Madam Pomfrey had managed to heal it with very little scarring, a few pale lines that you could only see, not feel.
He sighed, wishing he looked at least a little more healthy. There was just so much stress. He had his meeting with Krum today, and then of course the next week he was to meet his brothers for a little family get together. A three day trip of staying with family he hadn't seen since he was a child… all while going through the old things that belonged to his abusive parents and decided what was for whom. He didn't have any false ideas that they wanted to get together for true familial reasons. He was positive they just wanted him to share the inheritance.
He plunged his hands into his pockets, walking out of his room. People had been edgy around him after his misguided attempt of happiness through bloodletting. Among the most edgy were Ron and Hermione. He was surprised to find that Harry was the least uncomfortable, at least outwardly so, of the three. He'd always imagined that Hermione would be the one who would feel most comfortable around him, under any circumstance. Not Harry James Potter.
He frowned at a group of students standing in a huddle, talking excitedly. He paused by them. "What are you so excited about?" he asked them. They turned to look at him. Ravenclaw third years. One of the girls giggled, smiling at him. He lifted an eyebrow. "We heard that Viktor Krum is coming to visit Hogwarts!" she said. "Isn't that exciting?" she waggled her eyebrows suggestively. He fought an uncomfortable turning sensation in his stomach, before he walked away without another word.
He arrived in the Great Hall, only to be intercepted by Albus. "Severus, we've been waiting ages for you! He'll be here any minute! Get into the staff lounge, I've informed all of the professors that it's off limits today, so you and Mr. Krum will have a nice long time to talk!"
Severus walked wordlessly to the staff lounge. He slumped into a chair in front of the fire, hearing Dumbledore close the door behind him. He stared into the fire for awhile, wondering how much time had passed. Glancing at the clock, he found that barely two minutes had passed and already he was antsy.
He sighed, dropping his head into his hands. He felt fuzzy and anxious and tired. He wished that it wasn't the day he was supposed to meet this boy.
He jerked awake, looking around the room. He was in the staff room. Had he been asleep? What had woken him? He blinked his sleep away, looking towards the door. A broad-shouldered pale-skinned boy stood there. He looked slightly awkward, his mop of dark brown hair flopping over his forehead like doll hair. He had a strong, lean face with a slightly hooked nose. Well, Severus thought, at least he wouldn't mind Severus's own hooked nose.
He stood up, not tired at all anymore. He felt lightheaded. His palms were cold and wet, and he wiped them nervously on his new robes. He felt awkward and overdressed, the other boy was wearing a simple clean blue collared shirt and tan trousers. He frowned at Albus's formality.
"I am Viktor." He said. He had a thick accent. Severus swallowed.
"Severus," he said. He felt nervous, which was strange, he didn't usually feel that nervous meeting new people.
"I understand," Viktor spoke slowly, tediously thinking about each word, it seemed. "That you have been changed to a younger you the same as I."
"Indeed," Severus said. "You're still likely younger than me," Severus shrugged. "What, nineteen, right?"
"No, I am twenty years of age. Twenty-one next month." Viktor said.
"Right, well, I'm thirty-seven years old."
"I have received messages." Viktor said after a pause. "You are whom I was sent to find and now I have. I do not know from here what is going to happen. What the purpose of meeting you is."
"Me neither." Severus said. Viktor walked over, sitting in the chair opposite where Severus was standing. Severus found himself sinking down into his own chair. He was feeling suddenly and almost irresistibly drawn towards the other boy's form. He restrained himself, sinking his fingers into the soft flesh of the chair.
Viktor looked at him, swallowed. Severus watched his Adam's apple move, and wondered if Viktor was fighting the same urges that he was. It seemed so, he was sitting quite tensely. Severus noticed that the boy had very pale green eyes, startling against his dark hair. Green-eyed boy, the messages had told him. He was struck with the memory of a message… to unite in body and soul or something of the likes. His fuzzy mind was unable to recall the exact phrasing. He was struggling to prevent his body from becoming physically aroused. In his distraction, he was startled to suddenly find Viktor moving closer to him.
Viktor was reaching a hand out, his finger towards Severus's forehead. Unaware of the boy's intent and strangely excited by the experience, he was unaware that Viktor had somehow managed to situate himself into his lap.
There was a sudden blue streak of recognition as the soft and gentle skin of Viktor's fingers made contact with the smooth, ivory skin of Severus's face. A recognition as if he had known Viktor all his life, knew everything about him, his experiences, his knowledge, his soul. Viktor jumped as his hand made contact, apparently feeling the same things about Severus. He moved closer, touching his own forehead to Severus's.
If it was possible to feel closer to someone than he had just felt, he did. With the touch of Viktor's forehead, Severus's eyes became heavy, his lids closing. He could feel the other boy breathing, feel the flutter of his eyelashes as his eyes, too closed. The dark, doll-perfect hair was soft as silk against Severus's face, the warmth of the other boy's body seemed to fill him to the core. He felt not as a single person knowing another single person, he felt as though their minds were fused together. A flashing feeling of complete connection and acceptance.
His intense physical desire seemed dwarfed and he nearly forgot it in this moment of a feeling he'd never had, this moment of a feeling of true love for something. Someone. Viktor.
And suddenly, the feeling became not so overwhelming. He opened his eyes, his chest heaving with breath. Viktor's eyes fluttered open, green meeting mismatched, and Severus swallowed heavily. It was two people again, though he forgot nothing of the feeling or of the knowledge he had taken from the experience. He looked into the eyes of someone he knew in completion. He was suddenly again aware of his intense sexual desire. He frowned. That was slightly bothersome. His only consolation was that he knew Viktor was feeling the same distressed feelings, though he felt slightly guilty. Viktor was so confused about his sexuality. Severus had been almost amused to find memories of Hermione in Viktor, of straight-acting and picking someone he was intellectually drawn to as his experiment. No wonder Hermione didn't talk about Viktor much. Severus started laughing, abruptly, and Viktor seemed startled for a moment, before a relieved smile crossed his face.
Viktor moved slightly, letting his weight fall across Severus's chest, cradling his head in the crook of Severus's neck. Severus felt sudden Déjà vu, remembering a similar action that had been done with a different boy, a redheaded boy. He swallowed, banishing Ron from his thoughts, simply enjoying the warm, dark comfort of the body breathing against him.
****
It seemed hours later that Dumbledore entered. The two boys looked as they had when he'd left them to each other, no older nor wiser. They were sitting on a small sofa, cross legged and adjacent from each other, talking in hushed, intimate tones. Albus lifted an eyebrow at them as they looked up in unison at him.
"Well."
"Viktor is staying, right?" Severus asked.
"Yes." Viktor said. "I mean, I will. If you let me." He looked at Albus.
"Well, who am I to say no? Of course he may stay." Dumbledore grinned broadly. "I'll arrange him a guest room,"
"No," Severus and Viktor said together. "He can stay with me, Albus."
Dumbledore frowned slightly. "Severus, I have to say, I'm not sure if that is appropriate, I mean, sixteen years old, here,"
"Albus." Severus snapped. "Think for a minute. How old am I, again? How old is Viktor? I'm fairly sure we are old enough to decide for ourselves what is appropriate or not."
Dumbledore grinned, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, it's just so easy to forget," he said.
"Right." Severus said sarcastically. Albus grinned. "Well, I'm glad you're getting on so well. I'll leave you two alone then. Hopefully you'll find a solution to your little problem."
Severus smiled. Hopefully.
****
Severus rolled over, sitting up in the dark. He ran his fingers through his hair. He couldn't sleep. Viktor was sleeping on the couch in the other room, and he was just too aware of the other boy's presence. It wasn't that they felt they weren't ready for the final step in (hopefully) restoring them to acceptable ages and forms, it was just that for a relationship's sake they didn't want to move too fast. It was the second day of Viktor's stay.
Severus stood up and paced around the room, combing his hair with his fingers again, trying to walk away the heat that was boiling inside him. He opened his door a crack, peeking out into the sitting room where Viktor was. He tiptoed out.
"You sleeping?" he whispered quietly enough that he wouldn't wake him if he was.
"No," he heard Viktor's gruff voice say from the couch. He saw the boy sitting up in the darkness, looking over. Severus smiled slightly, before walking over and sitting down on the couch across from Viktor.
He sighed, flopping his head onto the headrest of the couch.
"You are having trouble sleeping?" Viktor said. Severus smiled, he found Viktor's heavy accent and rigid use of the English language somehow endearing and interesting. He liked listening to the deep-voiced boy speak.
"Can't sleep. Sleep is unnecessary. I keep thinking about this boy."
Viktor frowned. "What?"
"This boy," Severus said pointing to him. Viktor smiled, grabbing Severus's hand and yanking him forward.
"Got you," he said. Severus smiled against Viktor's chest. They were almost the same height and build, though Viktor was a bit more muscular and broad shouldered than Severus. They were a good match.
Severus couldn't help feeling ridiculously content lying against Viktor, feeling the other boy's body responding to him. It wasn't as though they were planning on doing anything. He still felt a bit of comfort in knowing that Viktor was struggling with it, too.
He felt Viktor looking at him, and he looked up. Viktor pulled him forward, capturing his mouth. Severus let himself get lost in it, before Viktor mumbled into his mouth, "I do not think that waiting will work,"
It was the best news he'd ever received.
****
Severus and Viktor sat in Dumbledore's office. Severus drank black coffee from a mug. Dumbledore walked it, started upon seeing them, before smiling.
"Well, then, this is interesting, isn't it?" Dumbledore said.
"An improvement, I'd say," Severus said.
"Not thirty-seven," Dumbledore said.
"Not sixteen," Severus countered. He did look older. Much older, around mid-twenties. Or as he would have looked at that time, had he not been aged by his experiences. A young looking adult. Viktor looked near the same, a little older than he had before his strange transformation, but not unpleasantly so.
"Well, care to explain what happened?" Albus said. Viktor looked embarrassed, but Severus just shook his head. "Not really. It is strange, though…"
"What is?"
"It didn't take us back to how we were. It seems as though it picked an area between our ages and put us both in the same spot." Severus lifted an eyebrow.
"Well," Dumbledore said. "Whatever fates caused the change in the first place are mysterious… perhaps they didn't want to go to all the trouble of changing two different ages and just settled on a happy medium."
"Perhaps," Severus said. "I still don't understand what happened in the first place." He shrugged. "I probably never will."
"Well, Severus," Dumbledore said. "The most I have figured is this… everything in the world is delicately balanced. Perhaps some people need to find each other in order to complete the necessary balance. I imagine that the messages and the transformation were a momentary glitch caused by an imbalance in the world, that being you and Viktor never finding each other the way you needed to, and by alleviating that problem, you were able to correct a distracting irritation, that being the age issue." Dumbledore smiled. "That's just my speculation, though. I've heard of similar things happening because of imbalances, never quite so drastic. Maybe you two are a more important connection that the others," Dumbledore shrugged.
"Good enough explanation for me," Severus said. "I feel at least a bit more comfortable…" he said.
"Comfortable enough to meet your brothers?" Dumbledore said. "That's in a few days, remember?"
"Yes, I remember," Severus frowned.
"Severus, if you don't want to do it, you can cancel and they will simply distribute the inheritance among themselves," Dumbledore suggested.
"No!" Severus snapped, suddenly. His eyes were wide. "I… I think I need this. I need to go back and face my past. I need closure. I need the family connection. I need… to go." Severus said.
"Well. I will send them another affirmation of your coming, then."
"Can Viktor come?" Severus asked suddenly, looking over at the new piece of his life.
"Of course, I imagine it would be foolish to go without him. Not good to strain a fresh relationship in such a way," Dumbledore sent Severus a naughty smile, causing a red blush to form in Severus's ears. Severus nodded slightly, and sent a relieved glance to Viktor, who smiled.
"We will have fun. I will meet your family, get to know them," Viktor said.
Severus nodded, looking at his hands. "So will I,"
****
A/N : Short, I know * rolls eyes * more soon : )