Title: What Eyes See

Rating:Let's call this R, just for fun

Summary:Harry wants detention with Snape. He is desperate for something only his Potions Master can give him, but he may get more than he ever wanted.

I hope I'm not too late.

It was all he could think, over and over, as he sped through the corridors. His feet barely made a sound on the stone, his robes flew out behind him, and it was the urgency in the pit of his stomach that drew him on. Made him run. Made him fly.

He stopped short, panting, at the thick oak door, supporting himself on its' knob, trying to regain breath before entering. Trying to appear unruffled.

He nearly fell in when the door opened suddenly, stopping himself just in time by grabbing the frame. He was face to face with a black waistcoat, split by a row of jet buttons, and topped with a crown of thick black hair and the displeased face of his Potions Master.

"Where have you been, Mr. Potter?"

"I'm sorry, sir, Professor, McGonagall had me scrubbing tables in the Great Hall, for the elves, you know, and I only just got done, I couldn't use magic—"

"That will be quite enough," said Professor Snape, moving aside sharply and inclining his head, indicating that Harry should enter the room.

Relief made Harry nearly faint. He was forgiven—as much as Snape ever forgave anyone—and he'd be allowed to stay.

He barely listened as Snape gave him the execrable task of removing rat eyeballs from the skulls of their unfortunate owners. Snape lectured him momentarily, took several moments to list his numerous faults, and closed with threats of bodily harm if he disturbed anything in the room that hadn't once been part of a rat. Finally Snape left him, and he slumped into a chair, knife poised over a rat skull. He frantically removed eyeballs, knowing that Snape would be back soon. And the pile of eyes in the bucket grew steadily, staring back at him, accusing and mocking. The rats knew what he was here for. Weren't rats always privy to secrets?

Finally his onerous task was done. He put the knife down, stood, and walked over to the cabinet on the wall. He ignored the latch, instead fumbling around at the back of the cabinet and freeing a secret catch, grabbing eagerly for the drawer that popped out on the side.

There was a bottle inside, with a peeling and illegible label, on purpose, Harry thought. Snape didn't want anyone to know what was in the bottle, should they happen to find it. He didn't know what was in the bottle himself, only what it did. And what it did was amazing.

He shook the bottle over his open palm, and a small round pill rolled out. Each time it was only one, as though the bottle was charmed to only give one at a time. Harry replaced the bottle, and walked over to the large mirror hung on the wall. He faced his own reflection; exactly as Snape had done the first time Harry saw him do this.

Hermione had asked him for a favor, and he had obliged, as he always did for his friends. He'd snuck into Snape's office to steal the belladonna, a drug off limits to students, and been forced to hide when Snape entered unexpectedly. And he'd seen--

Harry faced his own reflection, exactly as Snape had done the first time Harry saw him do this. He placed the tiny pill on his tongue, felt it dissolve into bitterness, and at the same time saw his reflection in the mirror begin to waver and fade. Suddenly the surface of the mirror came sharply into focus again, but Harry was no longer in the mirror.

There was his best friend, and there was his other best friend. Ron and Hermione, who slipped out every night for a walk. Harry had believed that the walks were innocent at first, but Ron's face unmistakably showed the signs of every emotion that ever crossed it, and when he began returning to the common room looking a little more than starry-eyed—looking satisfied--Harry knew what they'd been up to.

He'd taken to following them. Watching. Hiding. Behind bushes, in his Invisibility Cloak, barely daring to breathe. He'd learned to be silent, watching them touch and discover and remove clothes, sometimes outside, sometimes in the Greenhouses, sometimes by the Lake, everywhere, until he could come in unison with the two of them and never let his cries be heard.

But this was infinitely better. They couldn't catch him, they couldn't see him, but he could see them. They had chosen a spot near the Quidditch pitch tonight, touching uncertainly at first, then bold, shivering against each other in the cold night air, kissing frantically—

Harry's hand unbuttoned his trousers, found his cock, stroked quickly—

Kissing frantically, and he could even hear the whimpers and gasps between them, Hermione's stifled cry when Ron's exploring hands found the curve of her breast and her nipple—

Faster, Harry, faster, before Snape returns—

Footsteps. A hand scrabbling at the door.

Harry, instead of doing the sensible thing and returning to his place at the workbench, stuffed his cock back in his trousers and dived behind a jumble of protective work robes hung in the corner.

Snape entered, saw an apparently empty room and went to Harry's workbench to check his work. Apparently satisfied with the state of the rat eyeballs, he went to the same wooden cabinet in the corner where Harry had been.

He opened the tiny drawer and removed a bottle with a faded, illegible label.

He shook out a tiny pill into his palm.

He faced the mirror and put the pill on his tongue.

Harry, watching, wanted to shut his eyes and drift away into pretty and colourful fantasies of what he'd just witnessed in the mirror. He didn't want to see Snape's long spidery fingers grasping for his buttons, and he didn't want to see Snape's upper torso go rigid and then begin to jerk awkwardly, following the movement of his hand. And certainly he didn't want to hear the noises Snape was making. Not for him ordinary gasps and moans. Instead he kept up a low and steady growl that intensified with the upward stroke of his hand. The unearthly noise was occasionally broken by harsh, raggedly indrawn breath, like that of a dying man gasping for air.

Harry had just begun to realize the enormity of his foolishness in hiding. He was trapped, and once Snape was done he would leave and lock the door behind him, leaving Harry stuck in the workroom all night, with only the rat eyeballs for company.

But Harry was nothing if not daring and foolish, and he decided that an escape was possible while Snape was occupied with himself. With the right amount of stealth, and a bit of luck, he could sneak out behind Snape's back and out the door.

But he had to go now, NOW, because Snape was moving faster, almost done now, eyes shut, head thrown back, biting his lip. Standing with his feet spread like an arrogant small boy, and concentrating hard now on the image in the mirror. Moving. Moving.

Harry eased out of the robes, tiptoed behind Snape's back like a fairy tale heroine escaping the wolf, and was free.

Nearly free, because Harry couldn't resist making the mistake of most fairy tale heroines, the irresistible urge of those who think they are home free to look back at the danger they've escaped. And besides, he was curious, although the cat who died unexpectedly of curiosity could have told him where that would get him.

He had to look back. He had to know what densely perverted scene Snape masturbated to, and so he paused with his hand on the door knob and looked back over his shoulder.

In the glass, Harry's father died.

In the glass, Sirius Black died.

In the glass, a man with a hook nose and long greasy black hair died.

And Snape came.