"We understand the lights. We understand the lights above the Arby's. We understand so much… but the sky behind those lights - mostly void, partially stars - that sky reminds us we don't understand even more."
- Welcome to Night Vale
Song of Songs
The road back home is dark and quiet, over the rattling wooden bridge and across the cornfields.
"So…," Harry drawls, sly amusement spicing his voice. "Severus Tobias."
"Don't," Snape growls forbiddingly.
"What? S'got a nice ring to it. Did she used to call you that when you were in trouble?"
"Tobias was my father's name," Snape snaps. The only other thing he cares to say on that topic is, "I'd rather not talk about him."
"Oh."
"He's the last thing either my mother or I want to talk about," Snape declares, as flat and hard and cold as the slab of stone covering a tomb.
Harry sighs. It's not aggrieved or irritable, it's a soft, commiserating sound. After a long pause, he replies quietly, "I never knew my dad. At least I don't remember him. I know where Mom is now, but Dad… nothing. Sometimes I used to wonder… if he's still alive somewhere, out in the world, looking for me. He'd be a real true hero, like a firefighter or a pilot, and he'd come and rescue me from my aunt and uncle and then we'd both go on all these magical adventures together and never ever return to the farm. Silly, huh?"
Snape keeps his hands on the wheel, positioned perfectly at 10 and 2 o'clock. I used to hope that Lily would come back for me… Hope is a beautiful, terrible thing to have.
Looks like I'm not the only fool to hold onto lost hope. Snape recalls the day when he stopped for a familiar hitchhiker on the road out of town. In the end, I was the one to pick him off that highway to Brighton. I hope he isn't imagining me as some sort of savior…
Snape glances aside at Harry. The glittering green gaze that meets him is trusting and admiring and full of something he can't quite explain, much less justify encouraging further. I should really stop this. But what comes out of his mouth is: "Harry."
It obviously doesn't work as a discouragement. Harry's whole face lights up at his name being spoken.
"You don't have to wait for anyone to save you from your troubles. We are all capable of saving ourselves. Just like you did."
"Hm. Guess so," Harry's voice is quiet, pensive.
As they round a curve, descending into a grassy hollow, Harry cries suddenly, "Hey, stop the car!" Snape slams the brakes. Harry's hand is warm and sudden over Snape's wrist as Snape puts the gears into neutral. A second of warmth, and then Harry lifts his hand and points off to one side. "Look, over there!"
"What?" Snape is still searching for deer in the headlights, until it belatedly occurs to him that the alarm in Harry's voice is not alarm at all, but excitement.
"Fireflies!"
Sure enough, under the starry sky, sparks of acid green kindle and flicker, moving low to the ground in slow and majestic drifts, like the surge and ebb of the sea.
Fireflies.
Snape calms his breathing, pulls the car over into the ditch beside the open field, and switches off the headlights. Above them spreads a sea of stars dawning against the fading blush of sunset, and below them lies a field of grass, alight with the twinkle of living stars, such a bright, neon green: as bright as the glow-in-the-dark dials on the dashboard of his car. As startlingly unexpected as the flash of Harry's full stare from behind his glasses.
"Aren't they breathtaking?"
Harry's excited gaze is so vivid, so honest. It is, indeed, breathtaking. "Yes, nature can be," Snape echoes, neutrally.
Harry grins. "They're like living, breathing constellations, but you can catch them just by running after them and reaching up. Ever caught one before?"
Seems we'll be staying here for a while. Snape shuts off the engine and rolls the windows down, risking a mosquito attack. "I can't say I've ever tried."
"Good," Harry declares, with conviction.
"Good?" Snape waves off an imaginary gnat, if only for show. The air is surprisingly clear around here.
"Yeah, beauty like that ought to fly free." Harry beams, unselfconscious and bright. "It's great to see it though, with the right person."
Snape watches the firefly-lit field, and the stars reflecting in Harry's lenses. The rustle of the wind through the grass is like the low murmur-and-hiss of the radio between stations. Like the whisper of waves on sand, hundreds of miles away.
He'll fly free, soon enough, Snape thinks. I've only delayed him. He'll leave Pleasant Hope like his mother did, and just like her, he'll never return.
I can only be happy for him. Everyone who thinks life is worth truly living takes the road out of town, sooner or later. Harry almost left already. I can only hold him here for so long. But I'm thankful for all the time I can get, together with him, before he leaves.
They stay sharing the silence as the moon rises, huge and luminous and golden over the hilltop. The scent of grass and earth is even stronger than usual in the damp night air. Fog fills pockets of low-lying ground until they look like moonlit ponds, and all the humidity makes Snape's ears pop as if he's underwater, makes his head swim as if he's floating.
"Did you ever… um. Can I..."
You can ask, Snape thinks. I may not answer.
But Harry doesn't say another word.
This isn't floating, Snape realizes suddenly, this is drowning. His thoughts are so distorted and slowed down, as Harry leans in, toward him in the dark, resting his hand on Snape's hand as Snape's hand still clutches the gear stick, and he's still sinking deeper and deeper in. He can feel it. Harry's face is as close to him as Snape's own shoulder, and for some reason Snape keeps gazing at their reflections in the windshield, glowing firefly-green and strange in the light of the dials. As he stares he feels oddly detached, as if all this is happening not to him, but to a mirror reflection of him in some alternative, twisted, glorious universe in which he deserves absolution; as Harry leans in even closer and his breath warms Snape's cheek, his lips touch Snape's jaw.
I mustn't give into this. I must speak to him. I must stop this at once. In silence, Snape turns, but Harry's here, right here. With him. Because that's where Harry wants to be.
Or does he? Snape has to make sure. Carefully, softly, he reaches for Harry's glasses and pulls them off. He's had enough reflections. He needs the truth.
Harry turns, catches Snape's wrist, presses his mouth against Snape's palm, in something that can't be mistaken for gratitude anymore, as he leans into the touch. "Can I?" he repeats. "Is it OK? - Like this?"
Harry's irises are dark, so dark the green in his eyes comes only from caught neon-green flecks of light. His hands are over Snape's elbows. His voice is a bare whisper. He's babbling. It's endearing. Enticing. Unforgettable.
Snape lost his way in this warm green sea long ago. So he lets himself drown.
The slow and gentle caress of lips, the sharing of breath and touch that follows is truly a kiss of life.
The field and the flickering dance of fireflies is very special to Harry. One evening, when Harry had enough of the farm, of the Dursleys, he left everything behind and started walking. Everything, from the stars down, seemed so unreachable. He got as far as old Figg's field and was stopped by a vision, a swarm of fireflies descending like falling stars, flying within Harry's reach. He turned back and was home by morning, but that vision of wide open night fields lit by fireflies had stayed with him, vivid as ever, even years afterwards.
There's magic in the world, if you know where to look for it.
Magic. That's as close as Harry ever comes to believing in something outside of the mundane.
Today, as Snape drove them round the turn past the bridge, it was absolutely crucial for Harry to share that special moment of glimmering lights in the distance with someone. Not just with someone. With Snape.
The stars are amazing, with their supernovas and their bright giants and the superclusters of galaxies, up to one billion light-years wide! But the fireflies are even more amazing, because they are alive and right here under Harry's nose and within his reach: "Lampyridae are a family of insects in the beetle order Coleoptera," says his biology textbook, and it sounds like a spell. "Bioluminescence!" he whispered to himself while reading that particular chapter. "Larvae…. Glowworm…. The enzyme luciferase acts on the luciferin, in the presence of magnesium ions, ATP, and oxygen to produce light!" Just saying that sort of thing aloud lights up the room, faster than a supernova.
And now, fireflies light up the world: brighter than the distant house lights from Pleasant Hope, and more unpredictable than falling stars, and he absolutely has to show them to Snape on a night like this! Grabbing Snape's hand is the first thing that comes to mind, and it's totally subconscious and he doesn't even realise it at first. It probably isn't the proper thing to do to someone who's driving, but nothing happens, just the steady hail of gravel being flung from the wheels, and then they stop, and the fireflies are all still there. And Snape is looking at them, really looking, through the windshield. And Harry knows he understands.
He may be in charge of a church, but Snape understands all the important things. I know he does. We all need a reminder once in awhile: how small and fragile and beautiful and precious we all are among these unobservable galaxies of stardust and space, from the tiniest glowworm to the giant Galápagos tortoise, from a shifting grain of sand to the darkest stormcloud.
All those things Harry tried hopelessly to explain to others ever since he was young: the simple revelation of taking reality moment by moment as it is, just is, not as it might be with the remote possibility of divine tampering.
"Did you ever…" Harry has no idea how to phrase it, doesn't know the words that could convey how beautiful every glimpse, every breath truly is to him right now, so he just asks, low and breathless, "Can I?"
Snape tilts his head, fixing Harry with an intent, inquiring look.
Harry does the only logical thing he can do: leans closer and sees stars in the darkness of Snape's eyes and it's pure concentrated magic, all in one person, and Harry believes in it with all his heart. He lets himself fall in. Snape's hands are on his glasses, taking them off. The inside of his wrist tastes of salt when Harry presses his mouth to it. Like this, let me, please.
"Can I," Harry carries on and keeps falling, falling, until they kiss and it's frantic and awkward and wonderful, the way their breaths mingle and their lips meet. Harry climbs forward, over the seat and Snape reaches for something and lets his seat fall back a bit and there's a sigh, a groan, from him, from Snape, it doesn't matter, nothing else matters, as Harry lets his weight rest over Snape's shoulders and just lets the universe be, staying in that one perfect moment. Kissing Snape.
And then there are arms around him, big hands sliding up and down his back as Snape falls back and pulls Harry down with him and Harry's hands are in his hair, fingers tangling in long strands, holding his head still as the kiss turns hungrier, open mouths and their chests heaving against each other and it's warm, so warm, Harry can feel the heat in his skin and his head's spinning and he surfaces just enough to take a breath and their panting is so loud in the night.
He swallows, still panting. Licks his lips. It's dark in the car and he blinks and suddenly he wishes they were outside, out under the stars and the full moon because he wants to see Snape's expression, he wants to see his face and his body. He wants everything. "I need..."
"Husssh." One hand peels away from his back leaving a patch of chill, and then that hand lifts to his face and there's the gentlest possible brush of fingertips against his mouth. Harry's lips are strangely sensitive, kiss-swollen he realizes with a jolt, and he grabs Snape's wrist to keep his hand still, just as he'd clutched Snape's head, and he leans in to press slow deliberate kisses, every bit as gentle, to each fingertip in turn. His other hand is free to roam, to feel the hard chest under the dark shirt, and he can't quite believe still that he's got Snape here, right there. A magical moment, a magical place, and the man in his arms whom he trusts fully, unconditionally with a shared secret for two.
"...I know." Snape's voice is barely above a whisper, yet quiet as it is, Harry can hear a strange roughness in it, like a burr in its usual dark velvet. "Harry, I know." The hand that Harry's not holding brushes his mop of hair back from his brow, but when he leans in for another kiss that hand stays there, holding his head gently away.
Harry frowns; surely Snape can feel it, his fingers are still touching Harry's forehead. "Wha…"
Harry still can't see well, but he can hear Snape swallow. "Harry," and is that a note of sadness now, among that new huskiness? "We should…"
But whatever Snape was going to say is forgotten. Suddenly a stab of yellow light cuts through the night, eclipsing the stars and the fireflies, banishing the intimate darkness. The harsh blaze of headlights grows brighter and closer by the second, and the sudden crunch of tires on gravel and the growl of the engine shatters the quiet.
The car rolls to a halt beside them, and the engine goes quiet, though the headlights are still dazzling. Harry blinks the glare from his eyes until he can make out the car, and now it's his turn to gulp.
It's the police.
Harry's halfway in his seat and it's probably a lost cause by now, but still he fumbles with a trembling hand and pulls at his seatbelt covertly, promptly buckling it with a click.
Just in case.
The car door opens. "Hold it right there. Explain yourself."
"Er," Harry sinks deeper into his seat. What are the odds of surviving a car chase with the police? Perhaps he and Snape should take off right now. Because anything - anything! - even a Thelma-and-Louise sort of ending is better than being questioned by Officer Moody. There's no cliff around here that's high enough to scare Harry worse than explaining to a cop what they're doing out here, or anything about what just took place between them.
"Hey, Moody, stop scaring the locals. At least wait until they actually start radio-transmitting spy signals to the Soviets on freshly cooked meth fumes before acting like you've caught them at it."
"Locals? Ha. Who'd drive all the way out here and why?"
"Didn't you recognize the plates? You're slipping, Moody. That's Reverend Snape, it is."
"Well, I'll be damned. Sorry, Reverend. Ahem. License and registration, please?"
"And that's Harry. He's been staying with Snape for the past month." Tonks beams. "'Sup Harry? How are you settling in?"
Whew. Harry feels his lips stretch in a grimace, hopefully friendly enough to pass as a smile, and croaks: "Tonks! When'd you come back?"
"A while ago. After I finished up at the academy. I guess it's true what they say, nobody ever leaves Pleasant Hope. Something about this town, eh, Harry?" She winks and pumps her fist in the air. "Go Pirates!"
Harry grins. Tonks was a cheerleader for the Pleasant Hope Pirates in high school when Harry was barely in Junior High, helping Ron's mom at the refreshment stand, serving popcorn and hot dogs and soda to older kids. He still remembers Tonks celebrating one of the few times they won a game. She'd put on a plastic purple eyepatch to match her Kool-Aid-stained purple hair, and had even scrawled a quick mustache in eyeliner across her upper lip. A proper Pirate. She ruffled his hair once with buttery fingers, as she picked up the last popcorn bag, and popped a new tape into the Walkman at her hip, like sliding a gun into a holster. "Don't you worry, kid, this year we'll beat the Spartans for sure."
The Spartans won the Homecoming game almost every year Harry was in school, but only because every single player on the team held a grudge against Pleasant Hope and wasn't above cheating to get their way. But Tonks never let that spoil her cheer. She was so, so cool.
Moody's got a real eyepatch and a real mustache, and Harry's quite sure that he's got a pipe somewhere too, with some acrid, bitter leaf tobacco like a seasoned sailor would have around. He looks more of a pirate than the Pirates logo painted up on the water tower, and that one's got a 'stache as thick as Harry's wrist.
Moody hmphs and sounds more like Uncle Vernon than any pirate ever ought to sound. "No parking lights, best get that fixed, Pastor. And get the boy inside. Not good for schoolkids to be out after dark."
Snape starts the car.
Tonks leans over toward the passenger window where Harry is trying not to tremble. "It's all for show," Tonks confides in an undertone to Harry. "He says the exact same thing to me whenever I ask to do the night shift alone." She winks at him and straightens up; he sees her wave in the passenger mirror. "Stay out of trouble, kiddo!"
Easy for them to say when I'm already in more trouble than I can tell! Bet neither of them ever kissed a preacher!
Harry's heart skips a beat. Sometimes trouble is necessary, especially when it steals your breath away and turns out so much better than you've ever dreamed of, and so worth the wait.
