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
Author's note: I'm posting this early because I won't have time to do it tomorrow. I hope you don't mind because it means that the next chapter will be posted THREE days from now, instead of two. That's okay though, right?
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ANGEL IN CHARCOAL
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Perdóname. Andaré con frío y fuego y muerte y nieve, pero seguiré vivo.
Forgive me. I shall walk with frost and fire and death and snow, but I will live.
La Muerta by Pablo Neruda
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He had been used before.
That is an understatement. He has been wrung dry of all emotions, made to beg upon his knees, dominated - but not broken; never broken. He knows what it feels like to be taken advantage of and heaven knows that some of those times he had done nothing to stem the tide of mixed emotions that he had needed to feel while bent over someone, powerful and perfect enough in that moment. He had used others before too. Taken what he needed from the bodies that wreathed before him in his mind and his dreams. If his tears did not spill like blood on the motel floors and the back-alley walls, it wasn't for lack of him trying.
He wears a cross on a thin black piece of leather cord as a pendant around his neck.
It makes what he does seem sacriligious. To stand almost innocently, naked with golden brown skin, his black hair curls about his ears and his emerald eyes are like stained glass. He knows why they reach for him, wanting to feel that sinuous flesh against their hot skins as if somehow his purity will cleanse them of their perverted actions. He lets them. Touch him. Taste him. Like a game. He smiles with ruby lips and the smile is never more than skin deep. If they looked hard enough they would see his soul through the windows of his eyes. His beautiful grey soul as it darkened more. Their perversions. His lack of protest.
He knows how to play them and make them do what he wants. He gives them what they ask for. He leaves nothing for himself. If he tried to count on his fingers the amount of times he has awoken naked and bleeding, lying in the rain or under the light of the moon, he would never remember them all. Yes, he gives and gives, as if he thinks that's what he will need to forgive himself.
Harry is no idiot though. He knows that long ago, blood stopped being the currency to buy salvation.
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If evil had a name it would be a Malfoy, and a Malfoy always came with a sidekick. Narcissa Malfoy had Bellatrix Lestrange. Draco Malfoy had Blaise Zabini.
Lucius Malfoy had Severus Snape.
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"Ask me what kind of angel I am," Harry said softly.
He awoke in a room he had never seen before. This was something he had done many times before, but this time was different. The curtains were drawn, the bed was covered in silk sheets, and everything was black. Even the ceiling was a dark shade of shining ebony. Near the window, where the curtains hid the outside world, a figure also in black held Harry's gaze. His wings were gone. His eyes were no longer the all encompassing blackness that covered even the white. They were still deep and dark, but there was no evil in them. Staring into the pools of onyx, Harry realized that he had never felt so safe and it was a confusing realization. He may not have met him before, but he knew almost instinctively who this demon was. Still it made no difference.
"I know what angel you are," Severus Snape responded. "I was there when you fell."
"I didn't fall!" The words ripped their way from Harry's lips. They were words that he had always wanted to say, to protest. "I didn't want to fall."
"I know that too."
Snape walked over to the bed where Harry was sitting, half covered in silk. He reached out to lightly stroke the smooth flesh of Harry's cheek. It didn't burn. Harry expected that it would, but when it didn't he realized that obviously there had to be a way to turn off the darkness in order to walk among innocents. The fingers retreated, only to return when Snape grasped Harry's hand and ran his fingers over the space between wrist and elbow. This time it hurt as the fingers slid across flesh. Words that Harry had not seen in a long time appeared as if branded into his skin.
I am Harry Potter.
He pulled his hand away and cradled it against his chest. His green eyes flashed angrily as he whispered one word in the space between them. "No."
Snape's eyes narrowed to match the glare. "It is who you are. Accept it. Welcomed or not, you carry the brand of the demons. It is who you are."
But Harry shook his head in protest again.
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The first time he knew that there was an uprising building Draco had looked at him with something more than an all-encompassing love. He did not know what lust looked like but to have that gaze fixed on him sent fear through his entire body.
Now he thinks that it would have been easier to have gone willingly. If he had, then Draco would not have gotten vindictive.
Draco had wanted to share his lifetime with him and when he had refused, it was another lifetime that he was coerced into accepting. But Harry had escaped and gone to condemnation of his own accord. Now he knew what lust was. He carried it's stench everywhere he went now.
He can't help thinking though that if he had just given in to Draco then he would not have had to give in to all the other people.
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His escape lies in his desire to escape. Sometimes he doesn't want to and he would lay on his back and watch disjointedly as someone unfamiliar bounces up and down on his cock while he just waits it out.
His escape lies in how fast he can run and how far he will make it. It's in the thundering echoes of his feet as he runs down a deserted street at ungodly hours of the morning like he does so many times before. It's in the gasps of breaths that he takes when he falls to his knees. The tears sting his eyes as they fall silently down his face and it's just one more thing that marks an escape that he can never quite push his body into truly accepting.
He escapes now, from Severus Snape and words he heard spoken to him from lips too dark to be granted permission to address him. But he believes every word. He believes that Severus swore to Lily Evans to always keep him safe no matter what happened, and he believes that James Potter would demand that Snape find him and protect him, because long ago before the uprising Severus had owed the other angel for a great favor. He believes in demons and angels because he once lived as one and he is half and half. But, it has been too long since he had something guarding him so all Harry desires now is to escape.
"Hey, do you fancy a ride?"
Strange fingers caress his face. A strange voice assaults his ears. The tears are wiped from his cheeks as a strangers face swims into his line of vision. He is pulled to his feet, an arm is strung over his shoulder, pressing him too tightly against an unfamiliar body. He is steered towards a car just a few feet away and all he registers is that it too is strange.
"Definitely," he responds too softly.
This, he feels, is something he can never escape.
X-x-X
tbc