The Symbolism of Symbolism
Harry scrutinized Severus' back closely, his eyes roaming back and forth, up and down, drinking in the details. His mouth fell open in a silent "oh my god". He didn't know whether honesty was best at this point, or if he should flat out lie.... No, truth was best.
"Severus... that is the ugliest tattoo I've ever seen in my life. How much did the bloke charge you for that?"
Severus stiffened at Harry's proclamation, and he hastily jerked his cotton shirt up over his arm. "No need to be insulting, Potter. I happen to disagree with you. I had it done as homage to you – to us."
Harry sighed. It was clear that he'd perhaps been a bit too honest, and now Severus was descending into one of his famous snits. Merlin, this could last for days.
"Look, Severus, I'm not saying the idea isn't touching, and that I'm not, well, flattered. All I'm saying is the bloke who scratched that into your back has no right to call himself an artist! And while we're at it, what's with the wings? They look like they are strangling me!"
"For your information, Potter," Severus spat at him while he jerkily did up the plethora of buttons on his shirt, "it's supposed to be symbolic. You might want to grab your Muggle dictionary and look that word up. The artist has drawn me in the design of an angel – as in YOUR guardian angel. Merlin knows I've been guarding your miserable life since you were a baby."
"Hang on, guardian angels are supposed to have white wings…. Yours are black, and you never answered why they're choking me?" Harry asked. He could feel himself getting defensive. Severus was always making snide remarks about his intelligence, or lack thereof, and his quip about the dictionary was getting Harry's dander up.
Severus paused between buttons to look at Harry with complete disdain.
"In case you failed to notice, my robes are black, my hair is black, my wand is black. To have white wings would completely clash and look utterly ridiculous. You obviously know nothing about fashion OR art."
Harry's mouth fell open. "And you do? Look mate, you're no bloody Christian Dior, I'll tell you that. All you wear are those stifling bloody robes and those starched white shirts! You need to set aside an hour out of your day just to button and unbutton the bloody things. And as far as knowing anything about art, you think Dumbledore's portrait is a masterpiece," Harry said, his voice getting louder and louder.
"All right then, why don't you enlighten me with your knowledge of the latest fashions hot off the runway, or your idea of fine art." Severus folded his arms over his chest and looked down his considerable nose at Harry.
"I don't know bugger all about those things," Harry said, "but at least I don't blather on like you do. You call Hermione a know-it-all, but honestly, you are ten times worse."
Severus rose to full height and sneered at Harry. "For one, Miss Granger IS an insufferable know-it-all. For another, you consider stick figures animated by magic to be a work of art. And finally the artist who 'scratched this into my back,' as you so eloquently put it, came highly recommended. So much so that I had to book a month in advance to see him."
"Yeah well, considering your last disastrous choice of tattoos you'd think you would have steered clear of them!" Harry retorted, knowing deep down he was crossing a line with that comment.
The ensuing silence confirmed that he had not just stepped over that line, but jumped over it with wild abandon.
"That was low, even for you," Snape replied icily. He turned and walked into his lab, slamming the door after him. Harry knew he would be sleeping alone that night, and quite possibly the next.
* * * * *
*four days later*
"Harry! HARRY!!"
Severus' desperate voice rang through the house. Harry, who had been comfortably seated in his favourite plush chair idly reading the latest Quidditch team standings, threw the paper to the floor and ran towards the sound of his husband's panicked voice.
He found Severus in his potions lab, leaning heavily onto his hands over the chopping board. His pristine black robe had been thrown haphazardly onto the floor at his feet, and his usual crisp white shirt was untucked and scrunched up around his waist.
Harry was shocked at the sight. "Severus?" he asked as he hurried to his husband's side.
Severus looked up at Harry with a grimace that attested to his pain.
"Harry… Help me…!" Severus begged through gritted teeth.
"What's wrong? Tell me! Has there been an accident?" Harry asked, the concern in his voice palpable.
Severus grunted and shook his head, his lank hair swinging listlessly as though it too was in pain.
"Do you need a potion? A chair? Do you need to lie down?" Harry asked, his voice riding the edge of panic.
Each suggestion was met with a groan and a shake of the head.
"Merlin, Severus, tell me what's wrong!" Harry had never seen Severus in such a state, and he was about to grab his husband and floo them both to the St. Mungo's Emergency Ward.
"I need…." Severus said between gritted teeth.
"Yes? Tell me! Anything!"
"I need you to scratch my back! The bloody tattoo is healing and the itching is driving me to distraction!"
Harry's mouth dropped open. He'd been convinced his husband was on the verge of dropping dead! "Have you gone mad?" he asked incredulously. "I mean that seriously, Severus, do you have any idea what this looked like? I thought you were dying!"
"Yes, as a matter of fact I have gone quite mad. As I mentioned before, the itching is beyond tolerable! Now if you would, please do as I've asked and iscratch my back/i! Merlin's balls, Harry, don't just stand there. Put yourself to use!"
Harry's first inclination was to turn on his heels and stalk right out of the room and back to his Quidditch scores, but the sight of his husband in such agony made him sigh heavily and reach a hand up under the rumpled shirt.
"Really Severus, you've survived the Cruciatus. Don't you think you might be overacting just a touch?" Harry asked as he scratched Severus' back the best he could, considering he had no fingernails to speak of, bitten as they were to the quick.
"Not at all. This was much worse. But it's much better now… yessss much better…." Severus replied. His eyes were closed, and he wore such a look of bliss on his face that Harry didn't have the heart to stop.
"My goodness, such a fuss. You're a Potions Master, don't you have something you can slap on to take the itch away?"
"Nothing that wouldn't interfere with the ink and ruin the design," Severus answered, his eyes still closed in a state of bliss.
"Yeah well, we wouldn't want anything interfering with the design after all, would we?" Harry said under his breath.
He lifted Severus' shirt and took a really good look. As far as tattoos went, this had to be the worst he'd ever seen. The tattoo covered nearly three-quarters of Severus' back. Severus the "guardian angel" stood behind a poor likeness of Harry. The Angel's wings circled around Harry's shoulders, and they came to rest against his throat, giving the distinct impression that he was about to be choked. Not to mention Severus was looking down at Harry in what was supposed to be an adoring way, but came across as though he was going to rip open his jugular and drink him dry. And then there was the color. It was dreadful. The artist had attempted to shade Harry's face, but the result left him looking more like a burn patient, with dark reddish blotches all over his face. It was hard to look at that monstrosity and not cringe.
And yet Severus was surprisingly pleased with it. Harry had caught him looking at it in the bathroom mirror - several small mirrors floating around so he could see it from all angles - on more than one occasion.
Harry knew it was there to stay. He sighed and scratched on.
The things he did for love.
* * * * *
"Your tea, Mr Weasley," Severus said, as he gracefully handed Ron a hot cuppa with a shortbread on the side of the saucer.
"Cheers, brilliant!" Ron said as he dipped his cookie in his tea and savoured the first bite.
"So anyway, Harry, you know where I caught Hermione and Ginny yesterday? You'll never guess! Go on, guess!" Ron said, the occasional crumb flying out of his mouth.
"Um, in Diagon Alley?" Harry guessed.
"Nah, Diagon Alley's not so bad now that they've locked up the last of the stinking Death Eaters… er… sorry Severus. You know I didn't mean you…." Ron looked sheepishly at Severus, who sat ramrod straight next to Harry on the couch, as though enduring a visit from Ron was akin to pulling the stingers of a Blast End Skrewt from out of his backside. Indeed, he probably would have considered the latter more pleasurable.
"No seriously, guess! No? Ok I'll tell you. I caught the two of them in a bloody Muggle tattoo parlour! Hermione already had the design stencilled onto her back. Some stupid vine and flower! I marched her out of there straight away. I told her no wife of mine is going to have a tramp stamp. Ginny can get one, but she's, you know, kinda loose. But not my Hermione. Over my dead body, mate!"
Ron hadn't noticed that at the use of the term "tramp stamp" Severus' head had swung in his direction, a furious look on his face.
"I beg your pardon, gentlemen," Severus said, standing, "but I have only now remembered a potion that must be stirred. It cannot wait." With a curt nod of his head, he excused himself from the room.
Harry listened to Ron blather on for another hour before he had a chance to seek his husband out. He found Severus in the bathroom, holding a vanity mirror in his hand and scrutinizing his back in the larger mirror behind him. The larger mirror was wisely keeping its opinion to itself.
"What are you doing, Severus?" Harry asked softly as he leaned against the door of the bathroom.
"Merely observing the finer details of my 'tramp stamp'," Severus replied dryly, although it was clear he no longer seemed as impressed with the tattoo as he had been even a day ago.
"Look, Ron's an idiot sometimes, we both know that. Don't let him get to you. Do you want me to give that a good scratch?" Harry asked hoping to avoid his husband from sinking into a snit.
"Yes, as a matter of fact your friend IS an idiot. I have been regaling you with that detail for years now. As for scratching this monstrosity on my back, considering you took off half of your own face and part of a wing the last time you scratched it, it is clearly not a good idea. It is also clear that you find it hideous, regardless of my motive. Don't worry, I shall brew something that will remove it. It shall be gone by the end of the week."
With that, Severus placed the hand mirror on the counter and quietly walked past Harry.
Watching Severus pull his starched shirt over the tattoo as he walked out of the bathroom bothered Harry. Yes the tattoo had been a bloody menace since the moment Severus had come home with the blasted thing. It WAS hideous, there was no getting around that. And the constant demands to scratch it were proving tiresome. Just the night before, Harry had been on his back, Severus on top of him, thrusting wildly, both of them in the throes of passion, and Harry's hands, which had been on Severus' arse, had moved upward and touched the tattoo. Suddenly the thrusting stopped, and Harry spent the next several minutes scratching Severus' back. He rolled his eyes in the dark as groans of a different sort emanated from his husband.
Yes, no matter how you looked at it, there was really nothing nice to say about it, and it would probably be best if Severus did manage to remove it from his back. Removing it from memory would be a touch harder, as some things once seen could not be un-seen. But something nagged at Harry. Perhaps the way his husband stared at it as though it was a patch of pride. The way he had kept his intention a secret, even being in a near jovial mood the days leading up to it.
Harry couldn't deny that Severus was proud of that tattoo. It didn't matter how ugly it was; it was something he had done to honour Harry. Severus, who refused any forms of public displays of affection and who refused at the best of times to utter any sort of confirmation to his feelings for Harry, had opted to go to a Muggle tattoo parlour and have them both memorialized onto his back.
Harry could hear Severus crashing around in his lab, being louder than he needed to, while he readied his cauldron for brewing. He pondered what Severus had said the day he'd come home with the tattoo.
Symbolism.
Harry made sure Severus was still in his lab before he walked to the bookcase and found the gigantic Muggle/Wizard dictionary there. He opened it to the "S" page.
i"Symbolism,"/i he read aloud,i "artistic imitation or invention that is a method of revealing or suggesting immaterial, ideal, or otherwise intangible truth or states."/i
He carried the book over to his favourite plush chair and cradled it in his arms as he sat and pondered what he had just read.
How was it that he had been married for nearly three years and he hadn't realized how important symbolism was to his husband? How had he missed that? Severus was always telling him he had no powers of observation to speak of, this was the equivalent to missing a hippogriff on a Quidditch field.
So symbolism was important to Severus, was it? Harry really didn't give it much thought. As quickly as the thought jumped into his head, he was up on his feet and at the Floo. He threw some powder into the fireplace and stepped in.
"Ginny Weasley's house."
* * * * *
"My god, Potter, could you be any more impulsive?" Severus asked as his eyes roamed over his husband's back.
"I understand now what you meant, Severus. I understand that tattoo is how you feel about me. REALLY feel about me. I know you feel protective, but I see now… I see that it's a permanent image of what you can't always say. No matter who we're with, or what ridiculous event the ministry feels we have to make an appearance at. Even if you're unable to hold my hand, I know what's just under your clothes. I didn't understand it before, but I think it's beautiful now.
"And mine isn't as complex as yours. It's just a heart with your name through it. It means that it's only ever been you, Severus, and it only ever will be."
Harry looked over his shoulder at Severus, who was lightly running his hand over the giant red heart on Harry's back, his eyes drinking in the swirly script that spelt out his name.
"As far as symbols go, Harry, this is adequate," Severus said softly. "Adequate indeed. The fact you would place this on your person for the remainder of your life touches me deeply. Thank you."
Severus leaned over and placed a kiss on his name that ran across his husband's back. "Merlin, Potter, you couldn't have chosen an uglier tattoo, but it's the thought that counts," he added quickly when Harry turned to glare. "And the thought behind it is divine. Come to bed my husband. You have exactly four days before it will start to itch, and I would be remiss if I did not warn you that it will drive you to the edges of madness and back."
"Oh jeez, I forgot about that part." Harry said, turning to nuzzle Severus. "You'll scratch my back for me though, won't you?"
Severus cocked an eyebrow, a wicked gleam in his eye. "Perhaps."
~Fin~