Thresh
- Vain
06.24.2004
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Standard Disclaimer:
I own nothing except the plot. Harry Potter and all the elements therein are the intellectual property / registered trademarks of JK Rowling, Scholastic Books, and Warner Brothers. All the quotes preceding the chapters come from Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. If you have not read it, take the time and do so. It is an . . . experience.
Summary: SS/HP slash. Voldemort can give Severus the one thing Dumbledore will not: an opportunity. What's a Slytherin to do?
Warnings: SS/HP slash, disturbing themes, underaged-ness, violence, mature content, dubious consent, abuse of power over a minor, somnophilia, bondage, improper use of Potions, and some dubious psychological torture.
Rated: R - this is the EDITED version; links to the NC-17 version can be found at my profile.
Notes: Takes place in the middle of Sixth Year.
Snape is not a warm, fluffy, insipid sap in this: he is a nasty, sadistic, greasy, arrogant, ego-centric wanker. Welcome to the land of IC.
This is absolutely, 100 un-related to any of my other fics.
To facilitate updates, these chapters will be shorter than the chapters in some of my other fics.
This story was originally launched under my secondary pen name, "Hanakai." For convenience's sake, I have decided to streamline my fics under my original pen name, Vain. SAME AUTHOR. SAME STORY. DIFFERENT NAME. As a fic is re-uploaded under my Vain pen name, I will delete it from my Hanakai profile. Eventually, Hanakai will be deleted entirely, so please update your faves and bookmarks to reflect this.
Thank you for all your previous reviews—I saved them all—and I hope you all review again. I'm greedy.
For progress notes on the pen name transition or if you have any questions, please see my Livejournal (linked both my profiles). I hope this doesn't inconvenience anyone & thank you for your patience.
Special Thanks to my betas Apapazukamori and E.E.S.. WORSHIP these women. This chapter was a fucking typo minefield and they rightfully beat me with the Preposition and Conjunction Sticks. God bless their tolerance for my half-assed attempts at typing. snugs:-) All remaining errors are my own.
UTERRLY A GIFT with much love to EVELIA who draws me pretty pictures.
Plagiarism is no one's friend.
Enjoy!
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Chapter Four:
This Bottle of Beast
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""Your attitude to crime is pretty clear to me now, but . . . there are various practical possibilities that make me uneasy! What if some man or youth imagines that he is a Lycurgus or Mahomet—a future one of course—and suppose he begins to remove all obstacles. . . . He has some great enterprise before him and needs money for it . . . and tries to get it . . . do you see?"
Zametov gave a sudden guffaw in his corner. Raskolnikov did not even raise his eyes to him.
"I must admit," he went on calmly, "that such cases certainly must arise. The vain and foolish are particularly apt to fall into that snare; young people especially."
"Yes, you see. Well then?"
"What then?" Raskolnikov smiled in reply; "that's not my fault. So it is and so it always will be. He said just now (he nodded at Razumihin) that I sanction bloodshed. Society is too well protected by prisons, banishment, criminal investigators, penal servitude. There's no need to be uneasy. You have but to catch the thief."
"And what if we do catch him?"
"Then he gets what he deserves."
"You are certainly logical. But what of his conscience?"
"Why do you care about that?"
"Simply from humanity."
"If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his punishmentas well as the prison."
"But the real geniuses," asked Razumihin frowning, "those who have the right to murder? Oughtn't they to suffer at all even for the blood they've shed?"
"Why the word ought? It's not a matter of permission or prohibition. He will suffer if he is sorry for his victim. Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth," he added dreamily, not in the tone of the conversation. "
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Crime and Punishment
"What is this?"
A sneer. "Turkish Delight. What do you think it is, Potter? It is ham and potato soup. Now stop poking it and eat it!"
The silver spoon prodded at a pink cube of meat. "It tastes a bit funny . . ."
A withering look across the long dining room table. "I do apologize if the food provided by the House Elves is not up to par. Perhaps you would be more content dining alone in your quarters. I'm sure a week of plain porridge would help correct whatever gustatory impediments you seem to have developed."
Harry shivered, lonely on the far side of the table, and ate his soup in silence.
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He was sitting in the armchair in front of the large window in the Blue Room. A book was open on his lap, the title something loopy and indistinguishable in a foreign tongue. His black eyes were squinting slightly in concentration and occasionally his lips moved faintly as though barely mouthing the words. Harry hovered in the doorway just out of the man's line of sight, watching him. Flicker had vanished to wherever it was that he went when his charge had lessons with Snape. It was the only time the Elf was not hovering nearby.
It had only been four days. Four whole days. No word from Hogwarts. No newspaper. No owls. Just four days of nothing but Snape and Flicker. Somehow, though, that seemed like an eternity. Ron, Hermione, and Dumbledore seemed terribly far away, and sometimes—lurching awake in the morning from those disturbing, half-remembered dreams—Harry found that he could no longer picture their faces.
There were no calendars in Snape Hall, and even clocks were few and far between. With Flicker constantly attending to his every need, he didn't need a clock. The Elf would gently shuffle him from one task to the next with a quiet cluck and an occasional tug on his sleeve.
"It is time for Little Master to shower."
"It is time for Little Master to dress."
"It is time for Little Master to eat."
"It is time for Little Master to study."
"It is time for Little Master to relax."
"It is time for Little Master to read."
"It is time for Little Master to take his potions."
"It is time for Little Master to sleep."
"It is time for Little Master to bathe."
It was enough to drive a person mad.
After the "incident" at dinner that night, he had only seen Snape during his lessons and at supper, though he had no doubt that Flicker was somehow telling the man everything he did. He was glad that Snape had been MIA, though. Being around the man made something in Harry's stomach clench and rebel and tendrils of cold snake out over all his limbs. Being near Snape . . . Well, it kind of scared Harry.
He was alone, in God only knows where, and was dependent on a person who openly loathed him for food, clothing, and shelter. The awareness that Snape literally held Harry's life in his hands was enough to make the boy feel physically ill. That, and he didn't feel like he'd gotten a good night's sleep since he had arrived.
The dreams seemed omnipresent. Hands touching him. A warm, hungry voice, saying things to him—things that he knew had to be terrible. Things that made him feel . . .
Uncomfortable.
There weren't words for it. He woke up feeling hazy and hot and cold all at once. It was kind of the way Snape made him feel, only . . . antsier.
Even now, watching Snape, he could feel something insistent pressing against his mind and coiling in his belly. His legs seemed to tingle and there was an indefinable heat that left him feeling constrained and breathless. Watching Snape was like freefalling on a Comet broomstick—he knew something was there to catch him, but had no idea if it would hold. The whole thing just felt wrong to him.
It made him angry.
Snape . . . The man really pissed him off.
"Planning on staring at me all day, Potter?"
The boy jumped at the rich, rolling sound of his host's voice and then immediately berated himself for the movement. Snape was watching him now, face expressionless, but hard black eyes shining with some sort of dark amusement. The boy frowned at the dark amusement he saw there.
He was being laughed at.
Harry hated being laughed at.
Mouth set in a firm, angry line, the Gryffindor entered the room, hating the hesitance he couldn't help but display. Snape rose from his armchair and gestured magnanimously towards a table that had been set up in the center of the room to act as the boy's desk.
The Blue Room was actually a drawing room on the Third Floor of the North Wing. It was about halfway down the hall from the master staircase and the North Turret, which was one of the areas Harry was barred from. True to its name, the Blue Room had a dark blue carpet and all the velvet-covered furniture was a soft, relaxing blue like the waters in the Mediterranean. Even the walls were covered in plain sky blue wallpaper. The ceiling was white and across from the door, the eastern wall was occupied mainly by two large floor-to-ceiling windows. The tables and the bookshelves that lined the wall were all made of aged, polished cherry wood. Countless numbers of books packed the shelves, stacked in all sorts of ways to ensure that they would all fit, and lace doilies and Victorian-era ivory and wood carved figurines were scattered about with carefully orchestrated carelessness. This room served as his classroom.
Harry had never even been in this wing without Snape, let alone in the Blue Room, so he had not yet had time to take a closer look at the figures or the motif of the room. Just as the White Room seemed to have a celestial theme and his bathroom was adorned with horses, so too did all the other rooms seem to have a theme. Women with parasols seemed to be the predominant figurine theme here. And there were more books in this house than he'd ever seen anywhere—and that included Hogwarts.
Hermione would have been in heaven.
That thought alone was enough to depress the boy terribly as he made his way to his "desk" and slumped slightly in the uncomfortable hard-backed chair. He would never again wonder where Snape had learned his impeccable posture—not if he had spent all his childhood in these damnable seats. There was a new book on his desk—Defense in Combat—along with a fresh scroll, inkwell, and three quills.
Snape turned back to his book and one of those long, delicate-looking hands rose slightly, supple fingers flicking to the next page in his text. "Turn to page 78 and read chapter three. You have forty-five minutes. I suggest you take notes on any concept you're unclear on."
Harry heaved a heavy sigh and did as he was told without complaint. He carefully placed his wand on the table easily within reach just in case Snape decided to do a practical after the reading. Though it had happened only once before, Harry could still feel the ache in his ribs from a Tickling Charm left on too long when he hadn't been quick enough on the draw. That, and the humiliation of being spelled to laugh till he hyperventilated and passed out was still fresh in his mind. And the whole time, the bastard had just stood over him and watched . . .
After finding the appropriate page, he unrolled his scroll, dipped a quill in the inkwell and pushed his glasses up on his nose. If there was one thing he was going to get out of his imprisonment here, it would be knowledge. In four days it seemed as though he had learned more than he had covered in his entire first four months at Hogwarts. Snape seemed to know exactly what would hold Harry's interest—even if he was an utter bastard when it came to the actual teaching part.
As usual, it did not take long before Harry was utterly lost in the text. Not even Snape's almost imperceptible breathing or the occasional rustle of a page was enough to distract him. The subject matter was fascinating and the author was brilliant, weaving magical theory, history, and anecdotes together so seamlessly that it was simple to forget that this was a textbook. Occasionally Harry's quill would dash across his parchment in rapid, half-attentive script as a certain phrase or name caught his eye, but for the most part he found himself wholly absorbed in the material. This was his favorite kind of lesson: where Snape gave him something interesting and they just sat in silence together. Harry could almost forget that the man hated him then or— better yet—that the Potions Master was there at all.
It was almost a disappointment, then, when a sharp rap on his desk startled him from his reading. He hadn't even noticed that he'd begun on chapter four. The young man looked up, startled by Snape's sudden proximity—when had the man gotten up?—and a dull, familiar resentment coiled inside him at the sight of the professor. He blinked and leaned back slightly in his chair.
Snape noticed the move, but did not comment on it. Instead, he eyed his charge almost lazily, watching Harry with an intensity that made the boy flush inexplicably. "What is the counter to Eptum?"
Harry thought for a moment, determined not to be unnerved by the feel of Snape's eyes boring into his skin. "The Reflect Ward . . .?" His voice lilted a bit at the end, dragging the word out into a question.
For a moment, something flashed in Snape's dark gaze, but his expression settled into grudging acceptance before Harry could quite pin the look down. "Passable," he grunted, looking thoroughly annoyed with the admission.
Harry breathed an audible sigh of relief and looked back down at the book in front of him. He wondered if he'd be allowed to continue reading it outside of his lessons. Some of the books in the Hall—a lot of them, in fact—were strictly off-limits.
Harry jumped as a thin-fingered, stained hand suddenly landed on the page he'd been looking at. He forced his gaze upward to look into Snape's eyes. The Potions Master's dark eyes bored into him. "What is the matter with you today, boy? You've been twitchy all through your lessons."
Harry dropped his eyes to stare at the contrast of that stained hand against the aged, yellow of the parchment. He mumbled something under his breath.
The hand suddenly rose and gripped Harry's chin, forcing the youth to look up, and the Gryffindor instantly recoiled, pushing his seat back with a loud scrape. Snape smirked and Harry looked down, ashamed of his reaction. His hands, he saw, were balled into tight fists in his lap.
"Cat got your tongue?" the older man taunted.
His knuckles turned white.
"I said I haven't been sleeping well." Harry looked down at the blue carpet nervously, and then his eyes darted to the bookshelves of the drawing room-turned-classroom. He looked anywhere but at his professor. "I wake up in the morning feeling . . . nervous. Upset. Like I had a nightmare, but can't remember it."
"Hmmm . . ." The Potions Master watched the boy critically for a moment, absently drumming the fingers of his left hand on the table that served as Harry's desk. The teen squirmed slightly beneath his gaze. "That is merely a side affect of the potions. It will fade in time. Your body merely needs to adjust."
The man turned, robes flaring out dramatically, and stalked towards the bookshelves that dominated the northern wall. "I do not believe that you have adequately mastered the theory of the—"
"It's the room, too!" the boy blurted out before he could restrain himself.
Snape froze. The man turned slowly, peering down his considerable nose at his charge. "Are the accommodations unsatisfactory for the great Harry Potter?" The scorn in his voice was like a living thing.
Harry felt his cheeks heat in anger. "It's not like that! That place . . . It makes me feel uncomfortable. I keep getting all these headaches and sometimes I feel like there's someone else in there or something." His mouth tightened. "It—there's something off about it . . ."
Snape turned to glare bitterly at his ward, hands on his hips and a dark, ugly sneer twisting his thin lips. "Is there anything else that does not suit your taste? The food? Or maybe the décor of the Library? Perhaps you would like musical accompaniment with dinner? Or maybe a mint on your pillow every night?"
Harry stood, chair scraping awkwardly against the carpet, and he trembled slightly with anger. "Why do you have to be so cruel? I'm just saying, I don't feel like I belong in there—"
Dark eyes narrowed and all the expression drained from Snape's face. He took a single deliberate step towards the boy and regarded him with a look of utter contempt. "I do not know what sort of accommodations you are used to, Potter, nor do I care. I have gone through no small amount of difficulty in preparing my home to receive you and will not do so again. Your rooms will remain where they are. Be thankful I've provided you with rooms at all."
The Gryffindor swallowed heavily, but refused to back down. "Then I'm going to stop taking the potion," he challenged. His eyes flashed darkly and he took a step around the table to stand before his host. "It makes me feel like a zombie immediately after I take it and I don't like going to bed drugged every night."
"Not even you are that much of a fool," Snape hissed derisively. "I do not spend three hours every weekend making that drivel just because I enjoy it, Potter. Why don't you simply dress yourself in wrapping paper and go stand in Knockturn Alley with the words 'Cannon Fodder' written on your forehead? You will continue taking that potion, even if I have to order Flicker to tie you to your bed and dump it down your throat every night!"
"I won't!" Harry cried furiously. He took another brave step forward as though the motion could force Snape to concede. "I don't even need the potions! Dumbledore taught me well enough. I won't do it and I won't be treated like this!" his green eyes flashed brightly and his face twisted in anger and frustration. "I hate you! I hate you! The way you treat me isn't right and when the Headmaster hears of this—"
The force of the blow made stars explode in front of Harry's eyes and it was only after he realized he was falling that he heard and truly felt the loud crack of Snape's hand striking his cheek. The boy fell to the carpeted floor hard, and all of the breath left his body in a rushed gasp. He stared straight ahead at the blurry legs of a distant table for a moment, stunned. His glasses lay on the floor in front of him.
Suddenly, the swaying hem of dark robes obscured his line of sight and Harry shrank back reflexively. The motion was aborted, however, when a strong hand gripped the back of the teen's head, jerking painfully at his short hair, and forced him to look up. Snape was nothing more than a blurry shadow.
A puff of almond scented breath grazed his cheek. "I do not know whether to be infuriated or disappointed." The suppressed rage in the Potions Master's voice was almost as painful as the grip on his hair. "I have given you clear rules—" the hand pulled up, forcing his head back and then pulling the boy to his feet. Instinctively, Harry gripped at the wrist holding him up, but his efforts were wholly futile. "—but you," the man continued, "have been entirely uncooperative. I have been more than patient."
Harry struggled to breath, hyperventilating, and tried to wrench himself free in panic. His efforts were rewarded with a harsh shake. Tears sprang to his eyes and a sharp cry finally burst from his lips, freeing his voice.
"L—let me—"
Snape shook him again, wrenching his neck in an agonizing way, and began to pull the boy towards the door. "Be silent, Potter! I will tolerate your insolence and second guessing no more!"
Harry stumbled as he was dragged from the room and clutched desperately at the hand in his hair in an attempt to alleviate the pain. Images of all the horrid things that Snape could do to him flashed before his eyes and some tiny part of him couldn't help but wonder if he shouldn't have just kept his mouth shut.
The Potions Master dragged the struggling youth behind him by the hair, pulling him out of the Blue Room and down the hallway. Even if he had had his glasses, Harry wouldn't have been able to see where they were headed. Bent nearly double and tripping over his own feet, the only thing Harry could focus on was the whipping hemline of Snape's robes and trying not to fall down. He had no doubt that his host would continue dragging him by his hair, even if he were on the floor.
His fingernails scratched haphazardly at Snape's hand, just barely breaking the skin, and with every step, a sharp cry left his lips as they moved down the corridor at a brisk pace that forced Harry into a faltering run.
"Let me go, you bastard!"
"You will be silent, Mr. Potter. I have had quite enough of your cheek."
"You're hurting me!"
"You brought this on yourself," the man retorted in a cool voice. They passed the Master Stairs, but the only way Harry knew was because of the change in lighting.
Harry tried to dig in his heels, but the act only resulted in a particularly cruel tug on his hair. Something like terror welled up in him, almost overpowering him, and the teen shrieked and redoubled his furious clawing at his professor's grip. "Let me go!"
Abruptly the older man stopped, releasing his hold on the boy, and Harry ran right into his back and bounced off. He landed on the floor with a grunt of surprise and would have fled had Snape not grabbed his upper arm in a vice-like grip and dragged him back the instant Harry was on his feet again. He jerked the boy close, pressing the smaller body against his own, and a hand snaked around Harry's waist just before the man pushed him forward, slamming him face-first into a black, grainy wooden surface that he couldn't focus on.
Harry instinctively turned his head and his bruised cheek hit the wood hard, aggravating the pain from where Snape had struck him. He could feel the weight of the man around him and behind him—the scent of citrus, blood, chemicals, almonds, and dusty books overwhelming and ensnaring his senses. He gasped at the sheer molten pressure of the professor's body pressed tightly to his own and familiar heat coiled inside him, forcing a whimper from his lips as it slid from his belly to his thighs, and his previously lax cock twitched in alarming, horrifying interest.
Something hot and wet slid down the cheek pressed to the wood and he choked a bit at the feel of Snape's hand at his waist rubbing his hip ever so slightly.
"Let—"
"Be silent," the man hissed in his ear in an almost desperate tone. "I told you to behave, didn't I? I told you—"
Suddenly the Potions Master stopped and his free hand reached for something, pressing his body impossibly closer to Harry's. There was a rattling sound, the clatter of a key slipping into a lock and a doorknob being turned. Snape's lips brushed against the fragile shell of his captive's ear and his voice suddenly sounded much calmer. "You're just going to have to learn the hard way—just like I did."
Then abruptly the door Harry had been pressed against—because it was indeed a door—flew open. The boy yelped in shock as the arm that had restrained him vanished and he was pushed forward into fathomless darkness. His arms flew out to brace his fall and he cringed as the door slammed shut, casting him into blackness. Harry curled, eyes squeezed shut, and it took him a moment to realize that, despite the fact that he had felt like he was falling—knew he should be falling—he was not. In fact, he was floating.
A violent shudder went through him and the teen opened his eyes carefully, squinting into nothingness. There was absolutely no light. Quite literally, all he could see before him was blackness. Experimentally, the Gryffindor straightened his body and extended his arms to see if there was anything around him. When he met no resistance, he slowly began to bring his right hand up to his face, blinking rapidly as he tried in vain to make out the outline of his hand in the darkness. As a result, he nearly poked himself in the eye when his hand came to rest over his face. He held his eyes open, feeling the butterfly press of his eyelashes brushing his fingers, and stared incredulously. He knew he should be able to see his hand. He knew it. But still all he could see was darkness.
Trembling slightly, his hand fell away from his face. What was this place?
The feel of magic was in the air, oppressive and cloying, and he turned slowly, unable to quite orient himself. Where ever he was, the magic that had been worked on this place was old and powerful. And . . . unpleasant.
With a slight shudder at the dark echoes around him, the boy wrapped his arms around his waist and kicked his feet almost absently. His face and skull hurt where Snape had struck him and pulled his hair, and a headache throbbed behind his eyes. He sighed heavily and squeezed his eyes shut. "This is—"
Harry stopped abruptly and his eyes snapped open. There was no sound. Slowly, he brought his hand back up to rest gently on his throat. "Aaaaaaaaaa . . ."
Though he could feel the vibration beneath his fingertips, no sound reached his ears. His Adam's apple bobbed beneath his fingers as he swallowed hard. He wrapped his arms about his waist again and curled into a ball, as though that act would protect him from the malicious magic he could feel.
He did not like this place.
"Snape?" It could have been a whisper or a shout, but he couldn't tell for the silence.
He did not like this place at all.
Harry closed his eyes and thought hard about the Great Hall and Quidditch, but the memories were hazy and slipped away until only nonexistent birthdays and days in the cupboard beneath the stairs remained. He took a deep shaky breath in an attempt to center himself and calm the pounding in his temples. Locked in the cupboard again. Alright. I can handle this. This is old hat, Potter.
He inhaled again, the motion stifled by a hard, dull pain in his throat and chest. The air was too cool.
I can handle this.
He concentrated hard on breathing.
I can handle this.
Time seemed to pass slowly and it seemed to get harder and harder to breathe every minute. Eventually, his hand somehow drifted up to cover his mouth until he was dragging deep, soundless gasps in between his fingers. His head and his throat throbbed fiercely, making it even more difficult to breathe.
It started as a cold prickling on his skin—a feeling something akin to tiny insects crawling on him. Harry shivered, although he really wasn't cold, and stared out into the darkness, straining his ears for a sound that wouldn't come. After a few moments, the boy shifted uncomfortably, rubbing at his arms and stretching out his body. Then the crawling feeling progressed to itching.
It was a curious feeling—like eyes moving over his skin or a chill puff of breath at the nape of his neck. Whispers that were just out of hearing range or the sensation you get when you look at someone just in time to see them avert their eyes. It was as though all of the anxiety and discomfort that Harry had felt during second, fourth, and fifth year—when people alternately thought him the Heir of Slytherin, or a cheater, or mad—had been condensed into a sold, tangible force that now pressed against his skin in the dark and pawed at him with cold, tearing claws.
Uncomfortable, the boy slowly started to twitch and twist and writhe, brushing at his arms and legs with an almost compulsive absent-mindedness. Abruptly he stilled with a muffled sound that he felt but did not hear, and closed his eyes tightly, clenching his jaw until his teeth felt locked together.
There was no one in here but him.
He knew he was alone, no matter how cold he felt inside or how pressing the feeling of eyes on him was.
He knew he was alone.
I can handle this.
Unsteady hands rose again and clamped over his mouth as though the act could keep the hollowness he felt in his stomach at bay. He could feel the air dragging over his fingers in silent, nasal pants as he tried to calm himself. He thought he saw flashes of light dancing behind his eyelids and his skin felt as though it was pulled far, far too tight at the temples.
I can handle this. I can handle this.
Harry pulled short gasps of air in and out of his lungs a bit faster and scrubbed anxiously at his legs as the crawling/clawing sensation grew. The air seemed to get thinner and it felt like something was moving over his skin. Like small tentacles, or thousands of tiny feet running over his body.
They were on him.
Panic welled up in the boy and he uncurled from his fetal ball to begin rubbing frantically at his arms and legs—anywhere he could reach. He scrubbed his hands over his face vigorously and clawed at the phantoms in his hair. He scratched at his throat and felt the vibrations of voiceless cries there, before he began to pull desperately at his clothing, jerking at his robes until fabric tore noiselessly and he was pulling frantically at his own skin. Thin, bitten-down nails scratched at exposed flesh and his face burned and stung when a frantic hand swiped desperately at the pulling prickling of his skin.
The Gryffindor felt a tearing, pulling sensation in the back of his throat and would have worried that he was silently screaming with such power that it hurt, except for the fact that hideous crawling was everywhere now and something was touching him and he had to get out of here and where was Snape let me out let me OUT Snape Snape SnapeSnapeSnapeSnapeSnapeSnapeSnapeSnapeLETMEOUT and there was no air and Ican'tbreathe and it'sTOUCHINGme and SnapeletmeoutpleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseI'msorry—
Gravity reasserted itself with violent brilliance as a door opened and the world was suddenly filled with light and sound and heat and Harry hit the floor barely a second after his own shrieks reached his ears. The impact knocked the air from his body painfully and his head cracked painfully against a hard floor, prompting his body to spasm and jerk painfully as he choked on his aborted scream. The rectangle of interminable brilliance that was the door was suddenly broken by a man's black silhouette and Harry cringed away in terror.
Everything hurt.
But then the man was next to him and he smelled like citrus and almonds and dark, warm things that were not this terrible room and the man's voice washed over him in sultry, insulating waves.
"I told you, Potter. Didn't I tell you? You have to learn . . ."
But the words meant nothing to him and when a firm, gentle hand cupped the back of his head to pull Harry up slightly, all he could do was sob in painful, mortifying relief that that terrible feeling was gone. A vial was pressed against his lips as the man continued to murmur chastising nonsense and Harry swallowed it. Whatever it was, it was warm and chocolaty and instantly the aching in his body and the painful stinging in his fingertips ceased.
"Stupid boy. See what you've done to yourself?"
But Harry couldn't answer and the last thing he knew was the foreign feeling of someone holding him close and lifting him up in the air as blissful, natural darkness overtook him.
The first time Harry woke up, he knew he was not dreaming. He was in the White Room and Snape was with him, sitting on his bed next to him and smoothing a warm, soothing cream into the burning scratches on his chest. A pleasant, warm lethargy seemed to have settled into the teen's bones and his eyelids felt heavy. Unable to move, Harry watched the man—studied his face long and hard. It was not an attractive face; there was too much anger stamped into the lines around his eyes and his mouth was too hard. Snape's lips were too thin and his skin too sallow. His hair was greasy and his teeth were yellowed and noticeably crooked.
His hands, though, were gentle and felt incredibly good, and the fire that Harry felt on his skin seemed to vanish the moment the man touched him. And—oddly enough—the strangest expression twisted the older man's face: sorrow and bitterness and a look so intense and indefinable that Harry's lips parted in surprise.
He must have made a noise of some sort then, because Snape looked up at him, dark eyes burning with an overwhelming fire. It occurred to Harry absently that even the man's body was hot, venting heat like some sort of living furnace, as though whatever burned inside of him was too intense to be contained. The darkness he saw in those eyes, though, made him think of that horrid room and he suddenly began to shake and would have struggled to sit up if he had had the strength. A trembling breath caught in his throat and Harry turned away from the professor's gaze.
Snape laid a gentle hand directly on Harry's sternum and his palm felt hot and slightly slick with ointment. For a moment they both remained still as the teen desperately tried to compose himself and force down the memory of that place and why he had all these scratches and the reason his head was aching painfully. After several long minutes punctuated only by Harry's uneven breath, the Potions Master's hand slowly and deliberately slid up his ward's chest and past his collarbone to gently grab Harry's chin. Wide green eyes turned back to now-shuttered black ones and the boy exhaled heavily.
Snape watched him carefully for a minute, judging. "Now do you know what it means to be punished?"
Chapped, dry lips parted to answer the question, but when only silence was forthcoming yet another vial of potion was pressed to his lips. Harry accepted it without complaint, hating the man who gave it to him, but perversely thankful for his presence. He was cold and Snape was incredibly warm. He was hurting and those impossibly efficient hands soothed that pain. His eyes fluttered shut and he relaxed into his pillows as Snape began to treat the scratches on his abdomen.
Harry was . . .
Confused.
But Snape was here.
And if Snape was here, then he was not alone.
Warm hands massaged his stomach, smoothing on more ointment, and the last thought Harry was capable of focusing on was how desperately he wanted to cry, but Snape was there, and that was somehow incredibly comforting.
Confusing, but comforting.
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Chapter Five: The Mark of a Man
"Some wild things cannot be tamed, boy. Remember that when next you see fit to take something that is not yours."
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