Ecclesiastes
"Whisper a dangerous secret to someone you care about. Now they have the power to destroy you, but they won't. This is what love is." - Welcome to Night Vale
Harry twists, elbowing his assailant in the gut. He writhes and shouts and shoves, clawing futilely, and then the attacker, bigger and stronger than Snape, looming so much larger than Harry, is torn away from Harry, flung backward through the air.
NO!
Instantly, before Snape can even roar the word aloud, his entire being floods with a wild rush of might, sweeping restraint and thought away. This destructive power has been a part of him all his life: the kraken lurking at the bottom of the well of his magic, as instinctive and rapid as a reflex, and as dangerously difficult to suppress. Its grip on him had never waned, no matter how hard he'd tried not to think of what he'd done as a boy, how much he'd denied himself and prayed to be rid of it as a man...
Snape's restraint shatters, and with all the force of decades of repressed hurt and desperation, he explodes. Or, no; an explosion is random, impartial. This blast has all the ravening, bloodthirsty focus of a starving predator with its prey in sight. It's pure, distilled killing rage: targeted, deadly, precise, unleashed. It does not belong in any church. It cannot be contained by any church.
This fury is so intense that it all happens in a red blur of raging speed. The loudest sound is a single metallic thud: the gun hitting the floor, a dismembered hand still holding it. The attacker's shaggy-bearded face is a ghastly mask, distorted by blood and a rictus of hate and pain. The distortion grows, twisting his features, and he gives a nasal wail as his face changes entirely, his beard disappearing, his skin changing from a drunkard's flush to a sallow pallor, his nose growing beaky and hooked, tangled gray hair falling straight and black over his hollow cheeks. Dark eyes glare down with pure hatred.
"You!"
Snape's shock of recognition reflexively tightens the spell's invisible claws.
Blood splatters thickly across bare white walls and a few teeth rattle on the floor like a yellow scatter of pebbles. The man draws his final breath, with a long, ugly gurgle, and it's as if the spell dies with him. He plummets abruptly to the floor, a sack of broken flesh, barely held together by remaining bone and skin.
The thunder when the body hits the floor makes the ground rumble like an earthquake, shaking the small church until the walls crack and the foundation splits and fractures, and like a flimsy house made of tarot cards, it all falls down.
A dream, it's just a dream, Snape gasps and his heart is thudding as he wakes, in his narrow bed, to Harry's insistent shaking. Just like I had before. The first time.
He blinks blearily and racks his brain for something to think about, anything other than childhood monsters. It's not yet daylight, but he knows he won't get any more sleep tonight. His mouth's as dry and rank as if a sweaty sock has been shoved in it. His head throbs. He stretches to chase away persistent aches and eyes Harry. "Did you get any rest?"
Harry grimaces. "A bit," he admits. "You should sleep some more, there's hours left before the service."
Unhelpfully, Harry's insistence brings it all back. Facing today's service in his church: the scene of the crime. Facing the crowd. Facing his own demon. It also brings up a wash of cold emotion, something like dread. There will be no more rest for Snape today.
Snape shakes his head. Besides, there are far more important things that require his attention. "There's one thing I didn't tell you yet about your mother," he confides, quietly. "Would you like to take a walk?"
It's early morning and the sun has barely risen in the direction of the cemetery as they hike up the hill. Leafy grass stalks paint a net of dew over the toes of Snape's boots and turn the cuffs of Harry's jeans green and spotted with clingy seeds. The heat of the morning promises a storm brewing, later in the day.
As they talk they take the quickest path between the graves, until they come to a halt at one very well-tended, well-remembered headstone. Together they stand, looking down, as the slight dawn breeze picks up, ruffling Harry's fringe slightly, like an affectionate, stroking hand.
Snape applies the same affectionate, stroking magic to Lily's headstone, clearing the dirt from its surface, leaving it sparkling clean.
Harry's hand is a steady weight settling over Snape's shoulder. "Have you always been able to do that?"
"My mother was better at some things. Cards. But I broke her locking wards by the time I was school age." Snape deflects the unpleasant topic of his own abilities, "Lily, your mother... she was able to do something very different from either of us."
It works. Harry smiles mutely, as if he's been given an early birthday present. Perhaps he has.
"The day we met, she was on a tire swing hanging on the large tree. Have you ever tried those?"
Harry gives a fervent nod.
"Well, she was swinging so high, I was worried that the rope might break, or that she'd wrap it all the way around the branch, but she didn't. She just swung as high as it could go, and at the point when it was the highest from the ground, she let go. I was so scared she'd get hurt, I ran up to her. But she didn't fall. She floated, light as a leaf settling in the grass, and when she landed she asked why I was staring at her! And that's how we became friends."
"Over witchcraft?" Harry beams. "Lucky."
Snape recalls his own mother's own skill with a deck of cards, and the card she always drew to signify him: The Magician. Mother sneered at 'witch' craft, as if the word diminished her gift to something primitive, something dark and sinful. What Lily had, what Harry has, is anything but primitive, the opposite of evil. The last thing Snape wants to do is to normalize the loaded term in Harry's mind, but it's already managed to set in, like a stone sinking to the bottom of a lake. What kind of teacher does that make him? Even Mother has managed better than that.
Snape draws a breath and then releases a simple confession, as honest as it gets: "Lily was very special. She had the Gift, in the truest sense."
And so, not so far from the trailer park (just over that hill) where Snape grew up, not so far away from the playground of his childhood memories, and not far at all from what also lies right there, under the dusty dump of crumbling car carcasses and the rusty ribs of farm equipment rising from the cracked asphalt, the final resting place of so many of Snape's demons and guardian angels, Snape faces the truth.
He looks Lily's son in the eye and tells it like it is. "Your magic is the most precious gift one can have. Don't ever let it go." Or take it for granted.
Mother is in attendance during the service, and that does nothing good for Snape's nerves. She lurks in the corner, and he almost expects her to notice something out of place, even if there is absolutely nothing in the scrubbed room that would give away any of his harbored secrets.
Harry makes his way toward her during the short break and smiles, as they share a hymn book.
"Amazing grace…" she mouths rather than sings and her eyes meet Snape's, as she plays the part of pastor's mother perfectly, clutching her handbag and wrapping herself in her summer shawl, a small string of pearls shining around her neck. When watched out of the corner of Snape's eye, she has the canny, glistening look of an old crow looming over a flock of pigeons. Shameless.
Like a particularly plucky sparrow, Harry perches at her side.
None other than Vernon and Petunia Dursley descend on them after the service is over and the hymn books are put away.
Snape feels it necessary to stay close and keep an eye on them all.
"... ah, who is it but the man of the hour!" Vernon Dursley interjects.
"I trust everything is going well here," Snape intones as he collects the hymn book from frazzled Petunia. He's found that attending to their whims and nodding along to their complaint of the week gets them out of his church all the faster.
"Ah, yes. Of course. I was just telling your mother here, there was that awful drifter coming through town, right Dudley, darling? - long gone by now and good riddance. But he did say something odd, he did. That he's been keeping an eye on the church and you've been both keeping awake at night and it isn't the Bible lessons Harry's after. Can you believe it?"
"Oh, really?" Eileen arches an eyebrow, never one to let a particularly juicy piece of gossip go, and glances sidelong at Snape. "Can you, Severus?"
"Now, nothing against Pastor Snape, but the boy has always been a bit strange. It's not right, to have him impose on your hospitality any more. Come on, boy. There's got to be someone else in need of farm work willing to put up with another mouth to feed. It's hay season!"
Harry's mouth is thin. His face determined. He isn't looking at the Dursleys or Eileen, but right at Snape when he declares flatly, "I'm not going anywhere!"
Petunia blinks, her lips pursed. Vernon Dursley's cheeks turn an angry shade of red.
Eileen breaks the stiffness with a staged laugh. "Now, now, Petunia. Let's talk about you for a change. I do so admire your cushy farm life. Not long ago you came back to town without a dime on you, and your sister left you in charge of things out of the goodness of her heart. And look at where you are now!"
If the twist of Petunia's stiff upper lip could get any stiffer, the sound of grinding teeth would carry on for miles with it. "Yes, well, of course, we've done alright for ourselves."
Eileen leans over and breathes her next words, in the same sing-song adoring tone. "Your late sister's obituary never said much. Wonder what her will said."
Petunia, suddenly even paler than usual, leans back, as if she's seen her sister's ghost conjured up out of thin air. "Well, look at the time! Vernon, it's late. We really must go."
The trio leaves the church without so much as a single glance at the collection plate.
Eileen eyes them pointedly, and then drops a full roll of quarters on the plate with a mighty 'ding'. "For all your trouble this fine morning, Severus."
"Mother," Snape growls, biting his cheek, after he sees the last of his congregation out. "You really must stop scaring the congregation away."
Harry grins, cautiously.
"But what am I to do, if I want to visit my only son and he's much too busy preaching to take care of his starving mother?"
"How uncivilized of me."
"Indeed. Tsk, Severus, you're forgetting one important part of Sundays, you mannerless clod. Brunch!"
Snape's mouth twists in a smirk. My, she's in a fine mood today. Must've had a few, but a few of what?
"Right this way. Will leftovers do, or are you after a fresh meal?"
"Surprise me. Oh, but what fine radishes I spied in your garden! Good work, Harry. I'll take a bunch to go."
Eileen swings one hand over to Snape and another over to Harry, only one allowing her to do so without resistance, and leads them through the empty aisle to the cottage.
It's only later when they're sipping tea and radish-and-cucumber sandwiches made with yesterday's loaf, that she asks, "The church felt stuffier than usual today. Any funerals, or was it just Vernon Dursley's demeanor?"
"You read the obituaries as well as I do, Mother."
"Hmph, I shouldn't be surprised. You do reek of psalms and cadavers on your best day, but there's a touch more magic about the place, thanks to Harry, no doubt." She swallows the last bite of her sandwich, licks her fingers, and continues, "You really don't appreciate the boy as well as I could."
Harry snorts into his teacup. "Oh, I doubt it. I'm feeling very appreciated right now, thanks."
"If you say so. Ah, and what a precious thing, this mutual appreciation society of yours, why it warms the cockles, so it does. Oh. Is that a blush? It sure looks like one! Look Severus, right there!"
"Enough of that."
"Of course, of course. Oh, before I leave, Severus, as the man with deep knowledge of private donations, do you know where I could find some hair or teeth for an experiment? Any will do."
"Mother!"
She grins, displaying two rows of perfectly white, gleamingly sharp teeth. "What, darling?"
"Just have your tea and go."
"Tsk," Eileen leans over toward Harry. "And you put up with that? You'd never believe what a polite, well-spoken child he was, once upon a time." She heaves a theatrical sigh. "Whatever happened."
"He turned out perfect, a lot like you, Ms. Prince," Harry replies with a sunny smile, a hint of pink still lingering on his cheeks. Looks like he's finally learning the fine art of Managing Mother.
"Well, of course he turned out like me," Eileen huffs, gathering her shawls around her bony shoulders with a brisk flip of tasseled hems. "What other example would he follow? Surely not that sleazy bastard Toby. The prick never had a single magical bone in his body, but he had a bitter way with words all right, damn him. A slur here, a dig there, he never let up! Day in, day out, years of bickering, he wore me down!" Ms Prince drains her teacup in one long draught before continuing. "He had the devil's own knack of knowing exactly what to say, how to say it, when to say it, to drain me of any will to fight back, 'til he left me too damn heartsick to even hiss a hex in his direction. I wasn't myself at all. Except for one thing. One!"
She pauses for emphasis and raises a long finger. "I had just enough strength left for one more turn of the cards, just one more fortune. I drew from my deck, and I knew I had to make it good, for both of us, Severus and I, so I did. I thought of my son, and I asked for just one thing: the day that sorry sack of human flesh would drop out of our lives for good. I never wished for anything to happen so soon and so hard in all my life."
Harry listens in silence, cucumber sandwich growing soggy and forgotten on a napkin.
"So I shuffled. Drew three. Turned them over, all neat and orderly, just like the real fortunes I used to tell, and there they were: my cards, singing to me again, strong and true like they hadn't done in years. The Magician, The Sun, Five of Pentacles reversed; and you know, sometimes cards mean just what they say, right there. Right what's drawn on them. Right what their names are. 'Cause let me tell you, when you're desperate, when you haven't got any energy left to search for deeper meanings, all you can see is: magic being wielded, a sunny day, and the church window turned over, and I just knew. Next Sunday, after church. Poetic, innit? Just how it happened too, it's when he disappeared."
"If that's what you choose to believe…"
"Yes! Yes I do! Don't you see! That reading saved me, Severus, and it saved you! My cards have never stopped singing since!"
There's a moment, when Snape catches his mother smiling, and knows it's a smile of true joy, and he's floored by the impossibility of it, by the sheer depth of coincidences which led to her finally being happy, despite it all. And then he thanks her lucky stars for such a moment.
They're at the cemetery again, at Snape's suggestion. They're not here for the sake of the dead, not entirely. Practicality says it's an open, empty space, as different from Snape's childhood bedroom (a place of many first experiments) as it can get, and perhaps that's for the best. Somehow it seems right to allow Harry to learn what he's capable of, what his magic is capable of, here, by Lily's stone.
He deserves nothing less. He deserves to be shown the Gift in daylight, in a solemn and sacred spot, with nothing but nature watching, with the memory of his mother right here.
Lily's grave has fresh columbines and a single late-season tulip. A small herd of deer grazes in the distant cornfield.
"I'm still not sure about this," Harry says.
"Why?" Snape asks, softly.
"Sometimes, things around me… happened. And they weren't exactly all good. I thought before they were just coincidences. But it's me, isn't it? It was all me all along. I'm not safe. Maybe you should step back a bit. Or a lot."
"We are both safe," Snape assures him. "I've made sure of that." He has no supplies, not even a staff with him, but these are all secondary. The truth is, he feels in control enough to face whatever Harry may throw at him, and to protect them both from the prying eyes of anyone who might wander in.
Snape thinks back to the very early days, before… When magic felt like child's play, full of wonder and discovery, and he anchors himself in that feeling. Harry should discover for himself just how miraculous magic can be.
"Have you ever painted a picture?"
Harry shrugs. "Never was any good in Art class. Not that Ms. Trelawney was of much help."
"That's OK. I don't need you to be good at it. Just think about relaxing, and letting your hands guide you instead of overthinking things. Try something that makes you happy." Snape's no Bob Ross, but he knows what a steady hand and some patience can accomplish given time.
Harry concentrates, looking so focused that Snape expects a long-banished light bulb to reappear out of thin air and light up in a flash of lightning over Harry's head. Any time now.
All the world around them goes still. The white disk of the rising sun over the flat, foggy horizon, the black line of the electric wire marking the highway. In all the stillness the only things that move are the misty silhouettes of the deer stepping carefully over the corn rows.
One-Mississippi… two-Mississippi…
Flicker.
It's not a light bulb, or a sudden onslaught of wildflowers blooming, or a gentle breeze blowing away the fog, that Snape may have expected of Harry.
There's a small glow in Harry's palm, and on it, is a copy of a distant stag, settling in for the morning. It's toy sized and inverted, as if it has been through a camera obscura, and shimmering, and as real as a flash of lightning. It flickers like a flashlight, then rights itself, as if the surrounding world is the mind of an infant learning to flip its worldview by mind-power alone, its hooves to Harry's palm, its antlers reaching like tiny hands to the sky.
Snape uses his magic, for once neither for defense nor attack. He merely raises his hand and his energies to match the tiny figure with a playmate, with a doe. The figure is thin and leggy and leaping through the air, just like the ones Lily used to draw with chalk on the playground asphalt.
They soar together, his doe and Harry's stag, two small sparks of their magic, mingling, saying hi nose-to-nose.
"You know, I used to wonder," Harry murmurs, "if your father's dead, but you never visit a grave. Your mother, she always talks about your father disappearing, and she even sounds like she really believes it." He looks up, straight into Snape's eyes, and the next words he says, so very quietly, are not at all a question. "But he was your first one, wasn't he. When you were even younger than I am. The other one that deserved it."
Snape goes utterly still. The doe winks out like a candle flame snuffed, and Harry's unsteady stag is caught in the wash of the doe's erasure and follows her out of existence.
Snape stares mutely into Harry's eyes, finding the strength not to deny the darkest secret of his life, the one that lurks beneath the secret of his magic, the one he's spent decades hiding from absolutely everyone, even from his mother. The secret he's always told himself he will carry to his grave. He can't help but think of Mother's cards: the Magician, the Sun, the Five of Pentacles, reversed. Only it doesn't mean 'after church' - there is no 'after church' for Snape now - but a life, upturned in an instant, vowed to the sterile denials of priesthood instead of being a devoted heir, a powerful magician.
Harry reads so much more into Snape's silence than he would have thought. "Good," Harry says, quietly, with conviction. "He's not here anymore. We're here, and they're not. The next time you have a nightmare, I'll remind you of that. And the next time you feel like drawing Death out of the Tarot deck, I'll remind you again. And the next time you think you've got to shoulder the burden of the whole town's sins to make up for your own, well, you've got another thing coming. We're all responsible for ourselves! You don't owe this town a thing! Not a single damn thing, Severus! You owe yourself a whole of a lot of things you've missed out on all your life! Now, where do you want to start?"
Severus stands there, under a suddenly wide-open sky, and just breathes. And isn't it ironic, that it took a young man, yelling at him, for once not out of spite or hate but just the opposite - that much is crystal clear, that deep affection in Harry's eyes, the conviction of it - to make him truly breathe free. If feels like the entire earth has been flung open at his feet, as if a few careless strides can take him anywhere in the world. And maybe, just maybe, he's still a man with a life to live. A man with hope. No, better than hope. He turns to Harry and seizes the moment. He's not sure why or how or for how long, but he is loved.
The existence of such an odd, achingly tender moment is something timeless to hold onto and to treasure when all else fades. Harry's right, in a way. On occasion - like this brilliant, beautiful occasion - things happen when Snape is around Harry; they just do, and they are not always as obvious as a magical spell, or quite as earth-shattering as a worldview, transformed. They're not enough to turn Snape into an optimist (perish the thought!) but they do make Snape's reality brighter and easier to bear. Is it the strength of Harry's Gift to make hope blossom in the most unlikely places or just the blessing of his presence? Who can tell.
In the distance, the herd of deer suddenly takes off in perfect, silent unison, fawns soaring as they leap, until they disappear together into the fog.
It's all normal, perfectly normal. Just breathe. Lots of guys wear hats these days, and sunglasses. And hoodies. All at once. See, perfectly normal.
The sunglasses make it hard to see the labels in the far aisle, but Harry's pretty sure he has the right stuff. How many lubricants can there be?
In all of Hermione's lectures about safety, she never mentioned the perils of having to buy these things at the only gas station on the edge of town, the town where absolutely everyone knows everyone else and gossip travels faster than dial-up. Damn it. Harry hopes it isn't Filch's shift. At least it's a quiet enough afternoon that no customers are around.
The radio on the empty counter blasts a cheery tune right through the only door in the place, as Harry stands, awkwardly watching for any cars to come through, a small plastic bottle and a box clutched in his right hand, under a huge bag of Doritos in his left to cover up the real reason he came here.
I really, really hope it's Ron's shift now. Anyone's better than Filch. Anyone! Even Ron. I can tell him I'm picking them up for a friend, or for Hermione's lectures.
"Hello?"
"Who's there? Hold it, I'll be right with you."
Oh shit! It's Harry's worst nightmare come true: Mr. Filch.
Harry drops the Doritos and ten bucks on the counter, holds onto the rest and bolts for the door.
He doesn't stop running for two blocks, and only then fishes his actual glasses out of his pocket. He tosses the box, evidence, into the trash can behind Abe's place, pocketing the foil strip and the bottle. He feels extremely seedy just standing there, wondering whether to throw out the sunglasses and hat as well.
This is crazy! What are the chances I'll get to use any of it? One in a million, probably less. It's not like Snape's gonna jump out of my eighteenth birthday cake!
"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday tooo youuu! Happy birthday, dear Harryyy!"
Dobby's restaurant is filled with people, all of them staring at Harry in expectation, but it's a good kind of expectation. Harry can't stop grinning as he blows out the candles and it takes the very last breath out of him, like a giggle rising up to the surface, as the final (eighteenth) candle flickers and spits a curlicue of smoke back at him.
Ron's family and Hermione's and a few of their classmates are cheering and clapping.
"Yeahh!"
"Just look at that, our Harry, all grown up!"
"Go Harry!"
"Presents first!"
"No! Let's eat!"
"Congratulations, Harry, you're old enough to vote!" He's swept into an awkward hug, bushy hair tickling his nose.
"Now, Hermione," Ron rolls his eyes, patting them both on the back. "Give a guy some time to process things before you drag him to the ballot box."
"Ron! I can't believe I'm hearing this from you! We, of all people, can't afford to be apathetic, especially not right now. Do you know how low electoral attendance falls in off-year elections in Polk County? If everyone like us took the time to research the issues and show up, then who knows what might happen to our town, or even to our state, it might even catch up to the rest of the country!"
"Well, come on, you all," Ron's Mom commands, cutting Hermione's rant short, "Gather around, and get your forks. Dobby, I've got the plates already. Harry, dear, you get the first slice of course." Mrs. Weasley reigns over the unruly crowd as usual, as she hands Harry the knife to cut the cake.
Eileen is here too, pretending not to spike the punch. Snape is by his side. And no Dursleys are around for miles and miles.
Harry remembers drawing candles in the dust and blowing at them on his eleventh birthday, and desperately wishing he was special. This cake, covered by several creamy layers of sugary frosting, is anything but imaginary. The cake is so heavy, Ron and Ron's brother Charlie have to step in and hold it up to help Dobby, and there's plenty of it for everyone. He cuts the first square slice with Dobby's machete-sized kitchen knife and sure enough, the inside is a spongy dark red, his favorite. His mouth is watering in anticipation. The day can't be any more perfect.
It's a magical day, but what's even more magical is the knowledge that special things can happen, not only on a birthday but on every ordinary day in between. Every spell Harry casts from now on, every ritual he attempts, he'll remember that child, desperately wishing on candles drawn in dust before he even knew magic existed. That one unintended ritual was the first to work over time, and it worked very well, changing Harry's luck for the better, one small miracle at a time. Like the day he ended up at Snape's church door, like the evening when Snape's truck stopped him from hitchhiking all the way to Brighton. Like Snape quietly accepting and carrying his school ring.
Afterwards, he and Snape find themselves in the cottage, and Harry can taste the sweetness of red velvet cake on Snape's lips, and life is better than good. With this kiss, life is as good as it gets.
"I know what I want to do," he tells Snape. "I finally figured it out. I want to collect magic. All over. I want to travel and gather spells and hexes and cursed trinkets. And I want to write it all down and study it. That's what I want to do this year, not college or university, that!" Snape's stare at him is quite a sight. Harry hurries on before Snape can object, "Now, I know what you're going to say. But I've got my trust fund. I'm finally old enough to access it, and this is what I want to spend it on. Studying magic, from all over. Learning magic, teaching magic. Making it. And I want you to come with me. Will you?"
Harry holds his breath, braces himself for all the grumbling he's sure Snape's going to fire his way: it's ill-advised, it's insane, like everything else Harry's done this summer.
"Yes," Snape says.
Harry blinks. "Er..."
"Yes, Harry," Snape repeats patiently, a hint of a smirk in one corner of his lip. "Someone has to keep an eye on your adventures. Besides, I suppose this will now have a different use."
Snape passes Harry a lumpy bundle of tissue paper. Harry grins widely and tears into it. It's his familiar old school backpack, but it's been repaired and reinforced, with far more pockets than he remembers. Inside is a book, a big, solid hardback, bound in leather. As he draws it out to look closer, the gilt lettering on the cover, "College Notebook: Harry Potter" abruptly shifts in a molten-gold blur, until it reads "Magical Research Notes: Harry Potter".
"When I was your age, paper was scarce, so I used to scribble my notes on the margins of all the texts I read, enough notes to fill a notebook easily," Snape says. "You need a proper book for your own notes. And a proper bag for your travels."
A repaired bag is a practical gift, but a book bound in real leather seems so official. Harry's feels like he's floating, he's so dizzy with excitement. What if I write the wrong things down, what if I'm crap at it? So to force back his fears, he throws his arms around Severus (the bag and the book sandwiched between them) and crushes all those fears right out of existence in a huge bear hug.
"Happy birthday, Harry," Severus puffs, breath squeezed out of him, and it's perfect. Simply perfect.
August is hot and humid, with the corn growing tall in the field behind the cottage, high enough to heal the scar that a drifter once trampled through the new shoots.
Snape starts leaving the church door open and the fans running full speed in the corners during sermons and even that isn't enough. Harry gathers boxes full of tomatoes from the garden, and even Eileen tells him to learn canning or ketchup making, after he shows up with yet another box at her door. He can't help it, they're something he's grown that weren't driven by Aunt Petunia's endless whining, and they're as huge as melons and he's so proud of them.
He goes to see Hermione and Ron, and both his paladin and Hermione's wizard level up twice during an all-night D&D campaign in Mr. Weasley's basement. Harry's ketchup goes great with all the fries Ron's Mom makes, while Ron's sister Ginny watches Hercules reruns. She marked the date for the next season of Xena in a chakram-shaped squiggle and a couple of hearts. Girls can be really, really weird sometimes.
"So, listen to this," Ron says, gathering up the dice. "Filch's been complaining all day yesterday about that one time someone smashed a bag of chips just to spite him, and left it on the counter for him to clean up."
Harry feels his face grow hotter and focuses on his paladin's character chart. Leveling up is very important! Especially if they expect to make it through this dungeon without being eaten by a grue! This time around at least.
"... wants me to go through the security tapes for the entire month just to find out who it is, crazy old fart."
"Um…" Harry gulps. Shitshitshit. "Er, Ron…"
"Joke's on him, the camera hasn't been running for ages. I really need to fix it up."
Whew, Harry thinks. "Yeah, youshouldprobablydothat. Anyway, pass the fries?"
"This is odd... we really need to go through our inventory list again, I swear we misplaced a few magical items in the chest a few levels down... Harry! Are you OK?"
"Er. Great, whywouldn'tIbe?"
"It's just, you're rather red. Did something happen?"
"Huh, really? Nope. Really. M'fine!"
"Riiight."
"Oh, give it a rest, Hermione. He'll tell us when he's ready."
Harry thinks of that one condom in his back pocket and suddenly the secret weighs heavier than usual. "It's nothing. I mean it. Nothing that's mine to tell anyway. But if it were… something, that is. I'll tell you both, you know I would. For sure."
"Oh, forgot to ask, how's that friend of yours from Brighton doing?"
"Huh. Which friend's that?"
"Harry's got a friend with a dating trouble." An eyeroll from Hermione shows what exactly she thinks of that. "Who should be looking at college applications, as we all should."
"Oh, that. Um, I think it's fine. It worked out at least. They're taking it slow right now. But it's good," Harry grins, "real good."
Ron and Hermione exchange Looks. Weird. "Glad to hear," she says.
"To lovebirds in Brighton!" Ron raises a goblet full of Mountain Dew, and continues in his Dungeon Master voice. "As we all know, slow and steady wins the race. Now about that basilisk in the courtyard..."
Harry makes another trip out to the video rental in town. It's not Star Trek this time, it's The Men in Black. The movie has aliens and secret societies and is all about saving the world and it's awesome! Snape stares at him in bewilderment just as much afterwards as he does when Harry first presents him with the tape before dinner.
Things are pretty much normal, or as normal as they get in a world where Harry and Snape wake up at dawn to practice magic together in the cemetery right before Snape's Sunday sermon. Everything's going well.
Except for the journal with "Magical Research Notes: Harry Potter" on the cover, in Harry's backpack in Snape's cottage: all those empty pages, just waiting to be filled.
At times, opportunities for magical research arise in the most unexpected ways.
"It's just for one night," Eileen tells them briskly as she scoops up her carpet bag, "Or two at most. Count Furfur hardly needs watching, but my poor Minnie gets such a fright during thunderstorms and we're due for some thunder tonight. I'd take her with me, but the cards say there won't be many familiars at this year's Faire, so she'll be bored in no time."
Harry snorts, imagining Eileen among the crowds, in her finest feathered hat, rifling through the tarot decks in some tent at the Renaissance Faire up in Springfield. Oh the stories the people in various booths must tell!
"Don't worry 'bout a thing, Ms. Prince, we've got it covered."
"Don't do anything I wouldn't do, Mother."
"Ha! I should say the same to you, Severus, but we both know you're not about to listen. Young Harry on the other hand… You boys have fun now!"
She disappears with a rustle of skirts and a rumble of her car engine, and then Snape and Harry are alone in her house, for two whole days.
Snape shoos Harry away to tend to Eileen's garden, and spends a good afternoon going through the contents of the cellar. Cleaning, or so he claims. It's all very secretive and Harry leaves him to it, focusing on carrying buckets of well water to the cucumbers planted in a ring around the small apple tree, and to the green peas fighting for space up on the fence.
Trespassers will be composted, say the inscriptions on Eileen's garden stones. Weed it and reap. The stones are heavy enough to serve as a murder weapon, and flat enough to use to grind the bones to dust afterwards. He steers clear of the first inscription, snorts at the second, and obediently plucks a stray dandelion from the dirt.
Afterwards, Count Furfur is fed and Minnie is brushed and listened to as she purrs, all throughout the dinner of sandwiches left by Eileen in the fridge. Snape peers at the pitcher of mysterious concoction on the fridge's bottom shelf that in anyone else's house would be mistaken for iced tea, and puts the kettle on instead.
After dinner, Snape leads Harry to a new room, pausing first in front of the door to do something weird that must be taking down the wards. Magical wards, to the magical room, because magic is real! Actual magic! This will never get old. As Snape opens the door, Harry peers round the jamb, heart in his throat in anticipation.
Wow, just look at all of this! Incredible! Harry wanders wide-eyed into the middle of the room, and just stands there staring, suddenly out of breath. And he isn't sorry for missing the Faire at all now, not even a bit. Because in this room chock-full of the extraordinary, Snape's usual preacher attire is so startlingly out of place he looks like a witch hunter invading a witch's lair.
There's alchemy equipment on the bench: an alembic, scales, three mortars of several sizes, and a large dusty mirror with an odd coppery tint. Dried bird feet twitch, corn husk dolls spin, and wooden beads rattle. Grimoires covering the bed stir, pages a-shiver, braided bookmarks coming to life on the breeze. A dusty gas lamp flame stirs to life without any human aid at all, lighting the rune-covered walls and ceiling. Some of the elaborate wall paintings are black, but some shine blue or green or purple, swirling in a giant galaxy of letters around the center point where a ceiling light should have been.
"Wow! What's all this?" Harry asks.
There's something wild and proud in Severus' expression as it shifts into a smile and he admits: "Magic. Mine." He nudges the heaviest of tomes off the bed like nudging a pet and murmurs, "Besides, we have to sleep somewhere."
Harry beams and feels his face turning warm, as he considers the possibilities of this particular bed in this particular room with Severus and the possessive, gentle way Severus admitted ownership of its contents. His throat suddenly dry and tight, he takes a step forward. "Just sleep?"
"Well, what else did you have in mind?" Severus husks, quiet and slow. The tilt of his head brings the heavy fall of his hair forward, leaving his face in deep shadow.
Harry's heartbeat speeds up at that. He takes a step forward. There's really not much room in here: with the bed, the books, the shelves, and the two of them. "I thought…" Harry rests his one hand over Severus' forearm, and reaches forward to brush the hair off his face, to see that elusive twitch of a smile. He leans forward then, encouraged, to press his lips against Severus'. "Maybe..." he breathes, "We'll start with this. Yeah?" and wow, just wow, his heart's beating faster and his breath's caught in his throat just when they were in Snape's car at night, and Harry summoned up the bravery to do the unthinkable. And Severus is letting him do this, just as he did before.
I can't believe this is Severus' room, Harry thinks. The easy cluttered magic of it, the low warm light, the atmosphere is all so different from the sparse white painted walls of the cottage by the church. Dust motes stir in the air between the hangings, and the unswept corner - not even a single odd cat track in the dust - suggest that no one has entered this room in a long, long time. And yet Harry feels a little thrill of danger to be in here, as if Eileen's still around and can walk in any second, as if they're two kids messing around on a study date.
Severus' arms encircle Harry's body, slowly pulling them closer together. "Surely we can do better than one kiss."
It sounds almost like a dare. It's all the encouragement Harry needs to steer them toward the bed, the side without all the books anyway. He grins, picturing young Severus with his nose in one of these grimoires at night: a proper young magician's lair. He must've been such a bookworm when he was young. Oh, all the fun things Harry could've shown him that aren't books! Severus' neat shirt with its white collar looks far too ordinary to be worn here. Harry reaches for it first: clothes are just in the way now, when they're so close. "Can I?"
"You may," Severus answers.
Whoa! Harry's heart beats so fast and so loud, he can taste the hot rush of it deep in the back of his throat. He presses Severus' palm against his chest and it's warm and he needs more touch, more skin, more of everything. "You're magic," he whispers, like a confession. Like a precious discovery. "You really are. Amazing!" It feels like he's been searching all his life and finally found something wonderful he never even knew he needed this much. And Severus' hand stays gentle against his skin, fingers spread wide against cotton, and it's far too warm and intimate a moment to wear a shirt. He wants that touch on his skin, all over. He takes Severus' other hand, presses it against his chest, pushes Severus' hands down, arches into the touch, whispers, "Please."
"What do you want from me?" Severus breathes, and he's standing close, so close. Close enough to kiss.
"What do you want to give me?" Harry answers right away, echoing Severus' question with his reply, even though it doesn't seem right to demand something of Severus, especially something he may not be ready to give. Truth is, Harry'll take anything, anything at all.
"Well," Severus murmurs with a pleased curl of a grin, "To think, all those Sundays I spoke of a covenant, but I never thought…"
"Huh? How d'you mean?"
"Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as himself. Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him, and gave it to David," Severus, ever the preacher, recites, as he takes his shirt off and puts it into Harry's hands, the thin white cotton still body-warm. "...with his armor, including his sword, and his bow, and his belt." Severus takes Harry's hands and places them over his unfastened belt buckle. The belt is surprisingly easy to pull free. "You see, a covenant."
It sounds familiar, like Sunday sermons, but of course Harry's far too distracted to think of any details. The best he can do is guess, "Bible?"
"Of course. The first book of Samuel, chapter eighteen, verse three."
Harry grins wide. Trust him to remember the verses by heart! But Harry only now picks up the greater significance of the quote, like a secret left hidden in plain sight. "They're in love, aren't they?"
"Of course they are," Severus affirms, his beautiful deep voice so warm with heartfelt conviction.
Severus' answer strikes Harry as significant, somehow: not only admiration of a Bible quote, but almost a silent confession. In love. Is that what we are? What we can be. Oh!
"I didn't know," Harry replies. "I mean, I knew, that I do, not that you do. That we both are."
Severus meets Harry's gaze directly for once. Harry sees himself reflected so clearly in that dark stare. It's obvious they're not talking about the Bible anymore. "I'm glad you know," he says plainly, and Harry's heart soars.
Harry accepts the belt and the shirt as if they're a precious gift, folding them neatly and setting them aside on a stack of books tall enough to be a chair.
It feels wrong to do anything as ordinary as making out, or anything at all really, now when Severus went and confessed something so significant. Nothing else Harry does would come even close, would even compare to how serious Severus' confession was. "What happens next?" he asks.
"Whatever we want." Clearly the Bible's story is Harry's to mold into their own.
"That's the easy part," Harry smiles. "I want it all." It's obviously an invitation, so Harry backs Severus against the bed, pulling his t-shirt over his head and discarding it, and then going right for Severus' remaining clothes and giving them the same treatment. Severus' pants are heavy with an unexpected weight in their pocket and Harry suddenly knows exactly what it is and it makes his heart sing. He kept my ring!
Out of his baggy clothes Severus' body is far too thin. His hands are slow and reverent, tracing the shape of Harry's shoulders in broad curving strokes, as if moulding an unfolded wing.
There's not much room that isn't taken over by books but they manage. Severus' bony body fits like a slotted-in Bible back on the shelf after his sermons. Cat hairs and dust flutter up from the coverlet in a flurry of movement. The runes flicker and fade and flicker again around them, just like the stars in the vault of the sky, just like the fireflies in the distant cornfields.
Severus smells like dusty tomes, the good kind, like seasoned wood and linen. His mouth is warm and his lips so much softer than they look when they're thinned in that forbidding scowl, and every kiss is a dare. Harry smiles and, ever the overachiever, makes it more of a dare, to leave six kisses, counting down. A bare, pale shoulder first, just where his neck meets it. Bony knuckles next, as Severus' hand rises to touch his cheek. Then a tender wrist, veins branching blue as rivers on a map. A teasing bite right over the nipple, as Severus' heart is beating fast and wild. Then, right between and below Severus' ribs, in the solar plexus, and that's gotta be ticklish the way Severus stiffens at Harry's breath.
Last one then, making it count, with Harry's head buried in Severus' lap, seeking out the tender inner side of his thigh and yeah, got it in one, definitely ticklish there. And more. Much more.
It's the best kind of challenge there is.
Severus remembers many solitary evenings researching and reciting and carving the runes into the walls and the ceiling. The last true bit of magic he allowed himself before seminary. His final goodbye to his childhood and Mother's grand dreams for him. A wizard's home is his sanctuary, and Severus sanctified the place as well he could, sacrificing all his childhood hopes and all the memories of his craft, pouring his heart out into a spell woven together like poetry, completing Eileen's spellwork which barricaded the walls, like margin notes in an aging college textbook.
He never expected someone like Harry to venture inside these walls, to see his childhood scribblings, but here Harry is: awe in his eyes, staring up at the ceiling.
A covenant, he explains to Harry, because what else could this be but a promise sealed by a ritual? The Bible speaks of many covenants, and Mother's grimoires describe even more dangerous ones in gory detail. He opts for the kind that requires sacrifice to seal, the shirt off his back and a spoken word of admission. So much like a summoning, but Harry is far more important than any summoned spirit to Severus. He'll never be someone to be used and discarded, and Severus desperately needs him to know that, so he speaks the verses of Jonathan and David, the truest representation of the relationship of equals that he wishes for them, regardless of how impossible that wish seems: 'Loved him as himself.' How can I possibly love myself as much as another?
Nothing is too impossible now that Harry voices his need. And it's only right to encourage that, to allow Harry the freedom to ask and to see his needs fulfilled. How incredible it is that his needs seem to involve exploring every bit of Severus' body, at the same time as wiggling out of his jeans.
"Hang on," Harry dives for his discarded jeans, pulls his wallet out of the back pocket. The square Trojan foil is bright even in the dim light of Severus' oil lamp. A small bottle is in Harry's other hand. "First things first, right?"
'Be a rubberman!' A safe sex ad with a reclining messy-haired model looking slightly like Harry flashes through Severus' mind. But then relief follows the moment of awkwardness: At least he knows how to keep himself safe.
From his place among the books on the coverlet, Severus nods and smiles at Harry in invitation. He doesn't make a move, doesn't indicate anything more than consent to whatever else happens, leaving the decision of who'll wear the condom entirely in Harry's hands. There are spells for this, of course. But that'll come later. What with the contents of Severus' room, magical or mundane, not to mention the entire house, there are enough surprises in Harry's life already. Severus thinks of Harry's wavering uncertainty with magic before conjuring up that stag. No, no magic lesson for this. This isn't the time for a lesson anyway. I want him to feel safe and in control. And for that he needs something familiar to trust in, and what else is there than something he obviously carried in his pocket for a while, in anticipation.
"Can I?" Harry asks, reaching up from Severus' knee as if another barrier has been crossed.
"Yessss." A warm touch over his thigh, his belly, his cock. Well, Harry doesn't do anything by half, does he? Soon there's a condom wrapper littering the book stacks, not that that matters. Harry's fumbling touch is distracting, so very distracting. It's so very hard to stay still.
"This was much easier when I practiced it."
He practiced. How? And where? Severus wants to know in exactly what manner and all the glorious details, but first, a question needs to be asked. "Do you want me to...?"
"I've got it," Harry brushes off, exasperated.
"Not what I meant." Perhaps he's going through the motions because that's the only thing he knows to expect. "Harry, is thiswhat you want? Me, in you?"
Harry's face is flushed, his hair falling over his forehead, but he refuses to let it hide his stare. "Yes." He meets Severus' eye in what looks like a clear challenge. "Do you?"
With one simple question, with a single nod, Severus' slow and steady routine of coping with the world, of coping with himself; his lifetime of denying himself pleasures of any kind, is shattered forever. His hips lift of their own accord, pushing his cock again and again into Harry's insistent, maddening, wonderful grip.
"You'd better get on the bed then," Severus urges. Harry's way too far away, so Severus pulls him closer and flips them over, so Harry's on the bed instead, his unruly hair marking Severus' pillow. Severus takes off Harry's glasses, placing them safely on the book stack, pushes his legs up from the floor, his other hand steadying Harry's chest and feeling Harry writhe under his touch. "Look at you, all spread out," he savours the vision before him, "burning hot," he presses his palm flat down across that sweaty skin, and follows the path of Harry's treasure trail, down... "fresh for the ravishing."
"Fuck!"
No one has the right to look this ravished before even having sex. Harry manages. So Severus does the only thing he can to express how much this means to him. He takes charge.
Someone has to, to make sure Harry's run-in with magical spaces, just as with the magic itself is truly memorable. To make sure he learns from it. To make sure he's safe the entire step of the way. Many reasons indeed, but all of them take second place to the pure need for Harry's touch, the press of his body against Severus', the warmth of his mouth and his hands.
It's a new kind of ritual, to end all rituals before it. And Severus is used to plenty of rituals in his life, before and after the sermons, before and after every night and every meal, and every time when entering doorways in Mother's house.
There's a reverence to this, the same as casting a delicate, complex spell. So Severus notices even the tiniest things out of the corners of his vision: the raindrops on the west-facing window, the oil lamp on the shelf to the right of that, the feather fluttering on a cord along the east wall, the gathering of dust in the northern corner, and back to the window, his mind circling around the room and completing that circle shut in the safe space he and Harry now dwell. He keeps his mind aware of the surroundings to the right and the left, the up and the down, and can taste and visualize and hear the runes ring, runes traced by his younger hand long ago in the books all around them and in the frost-feathered windows of winter and in the mirage-rippled summertime air and in the reinforced walls and in the green wild garden out back singing to him. Runes that young version of him used in countless rituals to mark the four directions all around this house, in the rain, in the snow, and under the stars. And in the center of it all, converging onto the memories and the past experiences of countless spellwork, is Harry, and Severus' bed - never an altar before in his rituals - is now one, and Harry's pleasure is an offering, energy and joy called up and brought forth into the world.
There's a lightning-shaped scar on Harry's forehead, a glistening bottle in his left hand, the fingers of his right brushing through Severus' hair light as the breeze, his feet now bare, tangled in the worn cotton covers. His touch sparks heat through Severus' body.
Severus draws sigils over Harry's bare skin, a representation of every single element combined, clockwise and and never widdershins. Right to left, then left to right, and down down down, zig-zagging across his torso to his back, as he slides his palms over Harry's backside and squeezes. As he opens the small bottle Harry gives him and examines the contents, as he presses his fingers inward and Harry stills and gasps and then moves against him, faster and faster still, as if his very life depended on it.
He's counting Harry's gasping breaths like the beats of a shamanic drum. "Again," he whispers encouragement like an incantation as Harry moves to meet him. "Yes. Harry, yesss!" and it's a melody, a chant, sending Harry's body writhing against him, thrust after thrust.
"Yes!" Not just an acknowledgement, a surrender, to the oldest ritual there is. If there was ever a day for Severus to be a wizard in full power, it's now, truly now. Because he'll never summon a stronger demon, conjure a more powerful incubus, weave a stronger spell than the magic of wringing pleasure from Harry's body right at this very moment.
It's joy in itself to feel a lover's body moving with his own, in the honest, primal surges of bliss. It's a precious gift to see Harry like this, undone, unraveled at the seams, begging and wanting and needing Severus, as vital as water, as the next breath, as the sun.
"Yes, harder. Come on. Now. Right there. Yeah." Severus treasures Harry's rambling words and offers one of his own.
"Mine. Harry!"
He focuses on pressing himself against Harry's parted legs, against his writhing form and inside the more than willing body. He's gasping, between thrusts, and presses his forehead against Harry's panting chest.
"C'mon. Severus! I've got you."
If he has me, who has him? Does it matter, we've got each other.
So hot, so tight, it takes his breath away.
"Oh yess!"
A covenant.
With Harry wrapped around him, Severus shudders, thrusts, feels his body reacting in an endless spasm in the most urgent, truest ritual of all. Tied to Severus' magic, the runes on the walls flash once, twice, illuminating the room brighter still. His entire world goes white and then, for the first time since his childhood, heals whole.
"What are you thinking about?" Harry whispers afterwards, to the sound of the rain in the comfortable twilight of the room. Their limbs are intertwined and Severus is in no hurry at all to untangle himself from their languid embrace.
"You," he confesses. "But also of my church. There are only a few kinds of visitors in it: people who wish to study my words, people who sow faith among others, people who survived something terrible and look for comfort and healing."
"So what kind am I?"
"None of them. It was frustrating. I never thought you'd stay long: you were always looking for something. People like you usually don't stay at all."
"Funny, the more I listened to you, the more I wanted to stay," Harry beams, his hand over Snape's shoulder, his chin on Snape's bare chest. "You made me want to stay right here, in town, with you."
"The world has far too many places to see for you to stay here."
"Well, OK, as long as you're with me when I see them," Harry stretches and sighs contentedly.
There's a rumble of thunder, growing fainter as the storm moves into the distance. The breeze lifts the window shade, carries the smell of fresh earth from outside, rattling Snape's corn husk dolls. The only other sounds are the sparrows starting to chirp again around Eileen's bird feeder outside and the soft rustle of Count Furfur, sneaking in to lie on the open windowsill, looking at the raindrops as they gather on the glass.
One drop reaches the center at a snail's speed and then slides, slides, falls, gathering speed and strength as it goes.
Lily hitchhiked her way out of town. Snape has a far more suitable alternative in mind for Harry, when the time comes. For the first time in ages, he thinks of a new spell, and can almost taste it gathering on the tip of his tongue: tasting like thunder and possibility, like the raindrops on the windowpane, taking on a life of its own. A spell of a lifetime, for a happy journey ahead.
"G'night," Harry whispers. And the night, is, indeed, a good one. It's a promise of what's to come.
So together, they sleep.
The railroad trips through central Missouri are more interesting than they should be for such a flat, uneventful landscape: after all, most of the small towns here are bisected by one railroad or another. The ever-present loose wire dangles between the telephone poles and rises and falls and rises like a calm breath. If you stare too long through the train window, you may spot a few of the wires dotted by a perching bird or two, like a music sheet with a slow and fluid, three-note melody. The straw-yellow, sunlit fields beneath stretch flatly for miles and miles, in the silence of a tune unplayed.
In September, two travellers board the Missouri Mule and ride the rails north-east. The older, darker stranger has a suitcase full of what looks like odd notes and old books. An elaborately carved walking stick rests between his seat and the window. The younger, in a plain black shirt too large for him, clutches a full backpack. A stray red sock, a rolled up parchment, and a coiled belt stick out of the top of it.
They get off at New Haven and walk along the river bank, finally stopping in the shadow of a bridge that crosses the railroad they'd taken to get here. Harry unrolls the parchment, a spell Snape's designed to carry them from New Haven, MO, to New Haven, CT, and lays it flat on the ground.
"Onward! How does this work again?"
"Are you sure you don't want to see the West Coast first?"
Harry beams and shakes his head.
"Salem, then." Severus gives a little grin of his own and curves his arm around Harry, just in time for them to leave yet another town behind. Together they take a stride from the parchment into the distance, just a bit longer than an ordinary step.
The now-empty piece of parchment curls up from the ground and is swept away into the sky like a yellowing leaf, in the rising breeze that blows from the wide water of the Missouri river.
"Follow your heart (It's easy to track, because it crawls slowly and leaves a noticeable trail.)" -Welcome to Night Vale
The End
Notes:
Eileen is clearly Patti Smith's doppelganger.
Harry has his own doppelganger from a San Francisco Safe Sex Campaign in the 1990s: aep dot lib dot rochester dot edu slash node slash 41910
Severus Snape is currently reconsidering his calling as a man of faith and is embracing his calling as a teacher of magic.
