Disclaimer: The character names belong to J.K. Rowling.
Pairing: Severus/Harry.
Rating: R
Warning: Alternate Universe! Wing!fic. Non-Canon Magic. Not-Innocent Harry. OOC-Snape.
Summary: When an angel falls to the lowest low.
Author: Spirit
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ANGEL IN CHARCOAL
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If God is dead I will cry into the void...
Hunger of Memory by Richard Rodriguez
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"You're pretty."
In comparison to what?
He doesn't ask her that out loud. He doesn't protest. Almost, though. The words are so close to falling from his lips that he almost doesn't catch them. He wonders if she understands what she's saying. Then again, he gets told this exact line a lot from people like her. Small people with big hearts. She's probably five or six years old. He understands the attraction. Thrives on it actually. It's why every morning he walks over to the park to sit and watch them play in the sandboxes created for their sole pleasure. He doesn't smoke around them, even though the temperature is falling and Winter has been threatening for weeks now. He just likes to watch them. And he likes when one of them summons the courage to come over and do this.
"I am?"
She bites her lower lip and blushes. Hangs her head a bit. Peeks up at him from beyond long lashes and azure colored eyes. Then nods, as if the realization to answer the question has only just occured to her.
"You're prettier than me," he tells her in all seriousness, but she just smiles her shy smile at him again as if he's being silly.
She climbs up onto the mesh park bench before he can help her up. Then wiggles closer to him. Body heat? Something else? They always sit closer than politely acceptible. He always has to resist putting his arms out to just hold the small body protectively. Instead he scrapes at the black nail polish on his fingers and only realizes after he has done it that he has probably smudged the black lipstick he applied to his mouth, because he too has been sucking on his lower lip. So much for that, then.
Small people make him nervous. Really, bloody, heartwrenching, palm-sweating nervous.
He tries to act unaffected. Leans forward, stares out into the distance where the white houses with their brown roof swim into his line of vision. He doesn't look at her even though he really really wants to because she really really is so beautiful to him. He wasn't lying when he said that. Something about her makes him want to protect her.
But he has no wings to enfold her within.
"Want me to hold your hand?" Her voice is soft but more confident now that she knows he won't send her away.
Now there is a first. That question.
"Your mom and dad won't like that," he tells the cold November air and the horizon that he would be seeing if the houses weren't there in the distance. "You should probably go back to playing."
She takes his hand anyway. Cradles it between the warmth of her two small mitten-covered palms. Holds it as if it's a treasure that she is protecting.
She tells him her name. That her mommy and daddy are getting a 'dee-vorse'. Tells him that she has a new baby brother but she's not too sure if she is okay with that because she's not sure if maybe he is why her daddy makes her mommy cry now. Doesn't ask him his name. Doesn't ask him why his clothes has holes. Doesn't tell him that his eyes are glowing more green the longer they sit like this, even though they both know it is. Doesn't say anything sometimes as they continue to keep each other safe in that moment.
He curls her hand and kisses the back of it just like they do in the movies. She laughs because it makes her feels like a princess.
But then her mother comes over, grabs her and calls him a teenage pedophile.
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Sometimes he can still feel the brush of feathers against his back.
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It would be worse if he didn't have a place to go to when he really needs to. He knows that. So it's not every night that he has to stand on the corner of a street and waits to be approached. He only does it when he needs money. He goes on binging spells where he sleeps with three or four persons for the week then spends the next week purging. It's not like he feels anything anyway. Or at least, he pretends he doesn't. His body is borrowed goods. He learned that the day he was created but spent seven years being showed exactly what that means in human terms.
So he found a one room flat in a grungy apartment complex where he never uses the front door when the fire escape works just as well. Where the elevator sticks sometimes and so more often than not, he has to walk up numerous flights of stairs to get to the tenth floor. Ten is the number of completion.
Of course it is.
He never takes anyone into the flat. Ever. It's enough that he walks out onto the streets of London and can remarkably remember every chanced encounter he ever had. He doesn't need to lie on the settee, only to remember being bent over someone who would probably be singing his praises the rest of the night. Or worse, sitting at the dining table with a cuppa (or its equivalent), only to see a spot of white on the table cloth that he knows wouldn't be sugar or milk.
The apartment is bare, except for the few pieces of furniture that the previous owner left. He has his suspicions that maybe that person had died and stayed dead in the place for a while. He's not afraid of the dead. He's not afraid of death. He has already been to the 'great beyond' so he knows what comes afterwards. He is just grateful that the place is always empty when he needs to find somewhere to stay. He's grateful that people still hide spare keys under welcome mats. He says a soft thanks to the soul of whoever had died in the room because it made sure that no one ever came to visit.
At his age he isn't even supposed to be living alone much less own his own flat. Seven years earlier, he had been smart enough to not let on that he did indeed know of somewhere.
No rent. No trouble. Quiet as a speck of dust.
He learned fairly quickly to be grateful for the little things in life and so he's damn grateful indeed. Especially for the fact there there are no other tenants around him to discover that for all intents and purposes, he doesn't belong there at all.
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He dreams in black and white.
Shapes and sounds merge together to form a picture that he has long forgotten except in his dreams. The sound of laughter echo all around him. Not the manical dark laughter of the demons but the soft happy ones. He would see the pure, perfect shades of white that surounded him. He would feel the wind and there would be others saying his name.
Sometimes he can feel the sense of peace he had always carried around. There is no missing something until its gone, and there is nothing now that he wouldn't give to have that glow of knowing knowing that he was safe. There is nothing that he wouldn't give to be back there and he wonders if his parents know the truth of his descension. He likes to think that there sit up there watching over him but he knows the stupidity of that thought. Would they recognize him now?
He might miss the place in his dreams but he knows he doesn't belong there in the way he once did.
So he wakes and ignore the dreams.
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"It's supposed to snow tonight."
"Well I suppose we had to expect it at some point."
"Can't say I'm too happy though. I don't mind a bit of snow for the Christmas but I'm not too keen on wading through the stuff come morning."
Harry lies on his back on the bench he had sat on just that morning. He listens to the voices fade, and of feet shuffling away to escape the predicted snow. He sees nothing but the stars and the way billows of smoke curls from his lips as he feeds off the one stable thing in his life. He'll need to bum a pack of cigarettes off somone soon, one way or another. But for now he looks at the stars and the black sky, waiting for the entertainment to begin.
Falling snow reminds him of feathers. He's happy for the reminder.
When the snow begins to fall he feels like he has taken a deep breath of fresh air. So he does just that; filling his lungs with the sharp cold and the billows of white fluff that falls towards his face and whirl into his open mouth as he sucks it all in. He chokes of course, but that makes him laugh. His own laughter frightens him. He hasn't heard the sound in a very long time. The last time he remembers laughing was under the exact same circumstance. That makes him laugh harder.
He resists the suddenly strong urge to get up and spin around -arms open wide, the world swirling around as shadows and small snatches of light- in the open spaces around him.
Instead he slowly sits up and wraps his arms around himself to keep out the freezing cold that gets past the holes in his shirt and the thinness of his pants. He closes his eyes, keeping his face turned upwards towards the sky, and just floats on the tingles of coldness that falls upon his eyelashes and into his nose and on his lips.
Because of that, he almost doesn't feel the fingertips that stroke his cheek. He wouldn't have cared either because he is so used to having strangers touch him. Except that this touch is not like all other touches. The fingertips burn, really burn, as they slide along his face. He knows that only one set of beings burn the things they caress. When he opens his eyes in surprise, there is a face directly above his.
Dark glowing eyes stare back at him. Black wings are fanned out before him.
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One of the last things he remembers is the darkness.
X-x-X
tbc