Chapter Three
Blackness and silence, smoked rock and cracked ceiling close him in like a railway tunnel. He's back in that hallway, blood boiled to soot on the stonework. Buggering hell. Outside every window, the night sky tempts him, a dwindling line of star-flecked eyes too far away to help.
Peering about, Severus pulls the shreds of his nerves together as if tightening a frayed-thin cloak. Those fools came here to get away from the Great Hall? Wind whistles past a cracked pane, a desolate sound in the darkness. He prefers the chill to the inferno that must have battered its way through here several hours ago. Potter's mad or desperate to retreat into this gutted corridor for solace. It's like holing up in a crematorium. Even the owlery would have made more sense.
Right. Now he comes to it. How to persuade the blasted Room to let him in. He studies the stretch of ruined wall and curses his luck. Behind it lie two young lovers with an overpowering desire to be left alone, curled up together in a consoling fantasy. If Potter only knew who was seeking them, the boy would even now be calling upon his favoured-son status to ensure the very stones conspired against him.
The area is so ravaged that Severus can only hope he's remembering correctly, that it's really the same mute patch of rock into which he once conjured a door. As the youngest professor on staff, he'd treated it as his bolthole. When he could not endure one minute more of the Headmaster's maddening omniscience or the nosey-parker cheek of his fellow staff members, when the impulse to demonstrate his profound grasp of the hex spectrum had grown overpowering—Merlin, they'd thought his tongue was rude, they had no idea how many curses he'd swallowed—he used to sneak up to this spot and vanish.
Bringing all his obstinacy to bear, he strides back and forth three times. It doesn't work. Of course it doesn't. Focussing, he tries a second time. Nothing. Fuck it. He wants this finished. He doesn't know whether seeing Potter will make him feel less driven, but it's the only thing he can think to do.
Starting again, he marshalls his thoughts, although he knows it's a dead loss. It doesn't work that way. Still, he argues. Insists. Paces. Persuades. Bites his tongue to control his temper. Harangues in silence. Shakes with the hammer-blows of his banging heart, begging, I need this. To do this. For God's sake, let me in. He chokes with fury and repeats himself. His robes billow and tangle around his boots as he turns too sharply, turns again, like a caged hippogriff in a Muggle sideshow.
Finally he flings up his wand arm to crack the stupid wall apart, then whirls away in the same second, panting with defeat, the curse unspoken.
What's the point? The door won't yield. He knows that already. Just as he knows what it will most likely take to gain entry, and how despicable it is for Albus to force this upon him. He'll be sorry. They will all be sorry. He stands staring down the slender, quivering length of his wand and wonders what would happen if he Disapparated away, to the ends of the earth, turning his back on Hogwarts, on his past. Most of all on the boy inside that room.
Eyes closed, Severus drags one hand over his face. Covers his jutting nose, the hollows that have sunk into his cheeks over the past year. He should be dead. He shouldn't be in a position where anyone can humiliate him ever again. He doesn't understand what he's doing here. Love availed him nothing, that much is clear. It led to nothing but an early grave.
Well, he's alive and Voldemort isn't. That ought to count for something. But where's the merit in having outlasted the personification of everything vengeful and degenerate in his soul? Fuck God, fuck Merlin, fuck any deity who's even remotely responsible, there's something wrong with that. Something so random, an incongruity so far beyond the realm of justice, that Severus can't confront the knowledge head-on but can only sneer at it sideways.
The Dark Lord doesn't know how fortunate he is. No one expects him to make reparations.
So be it. He will degrade himself again. He'll do whatever's necessary, although to what end he hasn't a clue. Let the outcome be on their heads. If they insist that the deepest of his desires, the most heretical and soul-sucking of his hungers be pressed into service, then he will not be alone in suffering the consequences.
They forget, he has no master now.
Drawing himself up, Severus takes a moment to arrange his robes, breathe warmth onto his cold fingers, sweep his arm in a wide arc and clean the worst of the filth from the wall. He walks to the corner, outwardly composes himself, shuts his eyes and, in one stroke of silent confession, reduces the burial ground of his honour to a smouldering crater.
Pay attention, Albus. Lily. Take heed, all ancient magic and common decency that have forbidden him the right to what he wants. Has he earned it? No, but that doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter that it would destroy him. Ultimately, nothing matters, because this is what he wants:
Potter.
Your son. Your weapon. Your golden boy.
He swallows, and feels hypocrisy shrivel, self-denial go up in flames. You asked for this. He would have kept—did keep—this loathsome secret until the day he died. But they wouldn't let him go. They wouldn't let him die, and now they have to accept the consequences.
He wants Potter. Before God and the devil, he wants him.
Without fuss, Severus makes the first pass along the wall, unswerving, stalking straight ahead. He's already scraped raw inside, shaking, half-convinced he's released a demonic force into the world. He can't believe he's admitted this. Now that it's out in the open, the passion travels his veins, rabid, irrational, a private Fiendfyre consuming everything in its path: all his lies, his grotesque self-restraint, all the desperate clinging to his worn, futile love for Lily Evans. It desecrates the memory to which he's dedicated his life. He turns and begins retracing his steps, acutely aware that Potter's on the other side of the wall, that only a layer of stone separates them, and that he's never laid a hand on the boy.
Never, except to push him away.
It's like drinking deep after a dry spell so endless, so infinitely barren, that he's accepted the numbness as a judgment. As normal. After thirsting for so long that he's forgotten the astonishment of water, the taste of truth bursts upon his tongue. He's quenched and at the same time inflamed. He presses his lips together, then bites them, then licks the bruised skin with a nervous, sensuous compulsion. His footsteps remain steady despite his certainty that the floor's quaking beneath him. It's like rain beating hard on an ash-strewn landscape, and Severus soaks it in, his muscles trembling with shock. His emotions, the bleakness of his desire, churn to a froth, muddy, contaminated. He longs to tip back his head, let the freedom of depravity run through him, down his skin, longs to surrender to delirium and let appetite leach the last dregs of humanity from his soul.
His sanity's still intact, so he does nothing of the sort, merely pivots on his heel and embarks on his last long-legged pass before the wall.
Harry Potter is everything Severus is not. That knowledge is there in his heartbeat, spelled out with the steady click of boot heels on stone. Potter's vulnerability, his persistence, his refusal to be broken, his slow flowering into something halfway beautiful, is like the lure of potions, simmered out of slime and sweetness, crushed organs and iridescent wings.
Give him to me. Let me breathe the air he breathes. I burn with poison. Let me lay a hand on his skin and brand him with that burn. Let the touch of him be my cure. Give me something to remember before I quit him forever. And let me deliver his mother's promise of love in my own way, in my own voice.
Severus stops, the black hallway teetering around him, his robes moulded to his calves by the suck of a random draft. Cool air skitters up his legs. He's breathing even harder than he had after his mad dash up to the Astronomy Tower, and he's alive to the push of his cock uncurling against his thigh, roused from hibernation by the stirring of blood and hope. He faces the wall, fiercely. His last secret's been pried out of him by magical means, a debt as ruthless as a crowbar, the vault cracked open and the furnace unleashed.
Let me in.
The door materialises. Severus' nostrils flare, and for a moment it's a fair bet he'll rupture like a vial of unstable Veritaserum. Instead he grabs hold of the knob and turns it, quelling his nerves. He's not made of Flitterbloom. He will not tremble in front of Harry bloody Potter.
As he steps inside, shadows flicker in his peripheral vision, glimpses of blackened vestiges and cracked, ravaged walls, a grim reality held back by the one unwavering illusion the Room employs all its power to sustain.
There's a bed. Of course there is. He'd known there would be, he just hadn't—stopped to consider what it might mean. Vast and soft, enveloped in a (nauseatingly unoriginal) red and gold counterpane, thick creamy pillows, and a tasselled canopy. He despises tassels. A bed, and tucked inside it a boy and a girl, the covers pulled up but not enough to hide their nakedness. A black-haired boy with glasses (not presently on his face) and a pale girl with long, tangled red hair. Both of them slender, unsullied, in love, and—
Fuck this, he's going to kill something.
No. No, he's not. That's all behind him now. He stays by the door, and from a distance observes how they flail, shout, how they clutch the bedclothes, scramble upright into sitting positions. Shaking his head in contempt, he summons their wands and carelessly shoves them in a pocket. His charms, his spells, his shadowy elusiveness dissipate and leave him standing unveiled, the traitor, stained with invisible blood.
The girl shrieks at the boy, "You said he was dead!"
Her eyes are slightly puffy, pink with tears that have already been shed and soothed away. With kisses, no doubt. Severus wonders if Potter can really be that awful a lover, although losing one's virginity—assuming he's reading the signs right—does have a bloody lot in common with falling off a broom. It's collision-prone and ultimately bruising. Or it was for him.
Then a flash of memory incinerates his prurient speculations and reminds him of a deeper reason the girl has to cry: the Great Hall, ginger hair, a row of bodies, a huddled twin confronting the death of half his self, and he has to stifle a surge of—not guilt. He refuses to feel—
All right, yes, sod it. Guilt.
Like the romantic adolescents they are, they've been imbibing. A half-drained bottle of wine and two long-stemmed glasses wink every time the bedside candles flicker. Potter stares. Severus stares back. The boy's not afraid, and Severus has to admire the ridiculous cheek of a teenager caught wandless, bare-arsed, and virtually blind. But then, earlier this evening this singular child had crushed a ruthless and near-victorious Dark Lord. Severus lingers on that thought. Then he Accios the (somewhat bent) spectacles and slips them down the same pocket into which he dropped their wands.
It's a foolish gesture, courting a downfall. Even before he died it was risky, but at this point looking into Potter's eyes is addictive.
Ginny Weasley scrambles for her robes, and Severus hits her with a whispered, "Incarcerous." He doesn't particularly want to deal with a half-naked, panicky student running through the hallways screaming about him having returned from the dead.
"Leave her alone!" Potter barks. The girl struggles, yelling for help, and calls Severus a slew of harmless, common room-level obscenities. He resists the sadistic impulse to smile. It's tempting; students hate it when he smiles. At least he's done her the courtesy of aiming the magical cords so that her modesty remains wrapped in blankets. Her flushed face is an alarming red, and it clashes with her hair and the bed hangings.
He remembers the girl in the infirmary, burnt almost to a crisp, and his amusement fades.
He focusses on Potter and takes a single step forward. The girl screams, "Harry, look out!"
"What do you want?" Potter snaps at him, and then, falling back on his mainstay, sheer idiocy, "What the hell are you, a ghost?"
It's the sort of utterly pathetic remark that Severus used to swat aside with disdainful relish, the way one might counter a first-year's attempt at a hex. This time he hesitates. In fact, he doesn't know what he is. He feels oddly insubstantial, much as he did in the woods outside the Shrieking Shack, his soul blazing up too close to the surface. Can Potter see through him to his phoenix-fire skeleton, the luminous hunger that threatens to leap out and burn them all to a crisp? It's a kind of power, this poison. Because of it, the Room of Requirement chose a Snape over a Potter. His need to violate is evidently stronger than the pangs of first love.
Nothing ghostly about it.
Or the other way around: Harry Potter and his red-haired girl are the ghosts, Severus' personal revenants, reminders of the horror that put him on this path. The words he couldn't take back. The life he never got a chance to lead.
It's infuriating. Not only has the boy survived, but he's being rewarded with everything Severus wanted at his age. It's the same triangle all over again, with Severus left out in the cold. How maddening to feel this helpless, when he's the one armed, in control. He wants so much, yet he's permitted none of it.
Potter looks puzzled, perhaps by the fact that Severus is just standing there. Soon they'll be thinking necromancy's at work. He's about to provide a compelling example of pissed-off wizardry, thereby offering proof he's alive, when Potter, as always, takes the matter out of his hands and does the worst possible thing he could do under the circumstances.
He throws back the covers, slides off the bed, and stands up, stupidly, valiantly naked.
Since childhood, Severus has been told off for his unnerving glare. His eyes burn, his lips tighten until they're bloodless, and his nose seems to grow larger, more hawklike, the skin stretched so tight that he sometimes thinks the bone might pierce through.
Fever possesses his face. Merlin forgive him. Look there, scarcely more than an arm's length away. This is what he wants. This boy. Who is several pounds and two inches below average, not quite sexually mature, a gentle furring on his arms and legs, nothing on his chest, tanned on his face and forearms and otherwise pale. His cock is small but perfect. He confronts Severus, the spectre in the room, with owlish, nearsighted eyes.
Breathless, her words tumbling over each other, the girl cries, "Harry, what are you doing? Stay away from him! I don't care what anyone says, Snape's a— "
Severus flicks his wand. "Silencio." This is between him and Potter, and for his current purposes Ginevra Weasley is little more than background noise. He'll not countenance her imposing herself as a distraction. Soon enough, she'll have what she wants. What he wants.
Potter turns his head and takes in the sight of his girlfriend mouthing silent curses and struggling against her bonds. He starts toward her, but Severus flashes his wand in a snide "ah-ah" gesture. Potter freezes, then slowly faces forward again, hands raised, wary. He's got wrinkled, cushiony bollocks, wobbling now, the knob of his pinkish-grey cock swinging on top of them. His narrow thighs are muscled from the hours he's spent gripping broomsticks between them.
"What's this about, Snape? I thought you were— Right, so you're obviously not dead. Congratulations." Potter licks one corner of his mouth, the only evidence that he might be nervous. He doesn't say 'welcome back.' He doesn't even ask how it's possible. No, it's simply, "What do you want from me?"
The irony, under the circumstances, cuts deeper than ever. Say rather, what doesn't he want? The answer is, has always been: everything I can't have. This, for example. Severus will never have this. He'll never have Potter. Just as Lily was never going to be his. The yearning is always so bloody one-sided. He has no idea what he's going to do once he leaves Hogwarts, beyond vowing never to come back.
God damn it, there's nothing he wants, either here or in the wider world. The one thing he wants is precisely what he cannot have, and even if he could, it's not a reason for living. It's not the answer to why he has to do this all over again.
He tells himself to be calm, calm, that he's almost there, his task almost fulfilled. The fact that he's shuddering with rebellion and greed is entirely beside the point. He takes another step toward his naked adversary, his naked desire, the susurrus of his robes and the deliberate tap-click of his boot the only sounds in the room. Not quite: there's the spit of hot wick in molten wax, the panting of the outraged, terrified girl. Severus masters his body as he locks eyes with Potter, remembering how he bled out into the boy's hands, how the loss of his memories tormented him as much as the loss of his life. The poison kindled by having Potter at his mercy races through his veins in a frantic tirade, inscribed in fire.
You did it. You're alive. Thank you for not dying. Fuck you for not coming back for me. I'm alive but I'm lost and I don't know what to do. And you're alive and in love, and you're a hero and you're young and I'm not anymore and you can so easily have everything I missed out on, everything I'll never have.
He opens his mouth to tell Potter none of this, to give him only Lily's profession of love. He's obliged to say just that and no more. Instead, even though it's absurd, even though it reveals too much, a furious snarl rises to his lips, and he can't help it, he says out loud: "You ungrateful little fuck, you left me there."
The boy stares at him. The room is absolutely silent. Not a sound, save for a terrible ringing in his ears. For all that he practically spat the words, nothing came out. His lips moved—Potter's frowning at his mouth—but it was all pantomime. Nothing.
Silenced.
Heart sinking, Severus tries again, but he already knows it's pointless. There's no mistaking what this means. He's been made a fool of once more. Lily is protecting her son, exactly as she protected herself. Severus Snape is apparently deemed not worthy to speak to Harry Potter, despite having sacrificed his life so that the boy might rise again in victory. And despite having been under the impression that he was condemned to rebirth for expressly this purpose: as the messenger of Lily Potter's love from beyond the grave.
It's too much. With a single stride he has Potter in his grasp—from the corner of his eye he sees the girl on the bed thrash about—and he grips the boy's upper arm with such intensity, such rage, that if it had been Potter's throat he would have crushed his windpipe. As it is, there will be bruises, and he's glad. He wants to shout at the indignity, the unfairness, but he's afraid only spittle will fly. The boy stumbles, but Severus pulls him close and stares into Potter's unflinching face, his stubborn mouth, his eyes hard and hateful. This is what he saw as he was dying. This was the face that glowed above him in his agony and terror, this was the body that for months he'd guarded in his fantasies, barely touching in the secrecy of his mind. When that touch was finally granted, it turned out to be a clawing, clinging affair, spattered with blood and the bitter knowledge that his memories sentenced Potter to death.
Severus can't pinpoint when he first became aware that he was sexually obsessed with Harry Potter, because it emerged naturally, or unnaturally, from the violent obsession that already existed. His long fingers, twisted around the soft skin and slender muscle of Potter's arm, clench with such punishing strength because he fears that otherwise his hand will get away from him, start mapping this supple, forbidden territory, taking what doesn't belong to him.
There is nothing for him here. He looks hard into Potter's eyes, green and utterly uncomprehending, and thinks, near despair, hating himself for being so childish, Why didn't you come back for me?
He swears he hasn't used Legilimency, but Potter's eyes startle wide and the refusal in his face softens. Lily's words echo across the distance between life and death, like an Imperius curse: "When you see Harry again, please give him our love."
The ghost of her tenderness gathers in his mouth. Severus does his best, but it escapes unspoken. Unspeakable.
He lowers his head. He can't manage even this. His impurity apparently defiles the sentiment itself. He's prevented from saying anything to Potter, words of gratitude or accusation, love or hate. He won't find forgiveness here, can't ask for it, offer it, can't yell or disembowel with a single turn of phrase or—Merlin, is it so much to ask?—confess his part in Albus' plans. Everything's denied him, everything, even the kind of resolution between himself and this boy that will allow Severus to walk away clean. Or as clean as someone in his condition can ever be.
He bends further, as if an invisible hand is forcing his head down, and the most delicate layer of his skin touches Potter's. Surely he can breathe the knowledge into him, move his lips to speak the words and feel them take shape in Potter's mouth. Once he finishes, the boy will be free to repeat them to his heart's content, a charm of comfort, of eternal childhood.
He didn't come here intending to touch Potter. Or if he had any intent, it was to push him away. This isn't a kiss, because Severus isn't good at kissing. He's out of practise. To hell with that. He was never in practise. It's been years since he put his mouth to any better use than flinging curses or cruel witticisms. If the stupid boy hadn't left his own mouth open, there would be no reason for any of this to involve tongues.
And yet the next second he pushes his tongue past Harry Potter's lips, inside them, between his teeth, into the slick, deep pocket of his cheeks, rather like an underwater cave lined with small rocks and slippery, hidden things. The shock of wine-flavoured breath hits the back of his throat. He swallows involuntarily. Potter makes a muffled noise, and he swallows that, too. The boy spasms then, trying to wrench away. Severus stuffs his wand quickly inside his robes and catches hold of Potter's hair, forcing him to be still.
Now that he's committed himself, crossed the line, he realises this was always going to happen. He deserves something, and given the chance, he'll take it. It would be easier to smash and grab, but Severus doesn't want memories of assault. He wants the taste, the silky feel of inner skin, the helpless twitch when he traces Potter's tongue with the tip of his own, clumsy and foreign, sensual in its strangeness. He doesn't think he's ever been in the position to do this before, to anyone. He closes his eyes and slides around inside, as if he's dreaming in the dark, finding his way through a maze by touch alone.
Potter tastes of heavy red wine, of recent sex. Of unsapped life.
Take it now, with my blessing. This cannot possibly be what Albus had meant.
Severus drinks it in, regardless, and it kindles memories of what he once thought life was going to be. A curious buzz of Slytherin innocence tingles through him: I'll show you. I'll show you all. Yes, he remembers. Once upon a time, wanting was good. To have ambition was almost the same as having hope.
I'll show you, he thinks. Potter's free hand is crammed against his chest, clawing at his robes. If this is an actual attempt to push Severus away, it's having the opposite effect.
Exploring Potter's mouth—anticipating the bite, and almost disappointed when it doesn't come—he presses deeper, desperate for more, unwilling to stop because stopping means letting go and letting go means turning at last toward the empty horizon. He's not ready for that yet. Much better to hold Potter crushed to his body, practically buried in his robes. He shifts his legs and drags Potter between them. Even through layers of clothing, the boy's nakedness sings, clean limbs, skin like butter. Severus isn't that tall, and certainly not that broad, never mind that he prides himself on being able to stand up to just about anything. Even so, he could fairly claim to engulf this wiry, short-arsed boy hero. His outspread fingers span the parameters of the thick skull he's so often mocked. He wonders if Potter tastes the delirious poison on his tongue, if the imprint of his molten skeleton, reborn from the bloody ashes, glows hot through his robes.
Potter's stopped struggling. His mouth, while not exactly willing, hangs open. Unsated, Severus pushes deeper and licks harder and finally, through some miracle, lures Potter to offer him his tongue in return. Heat probes his mouth, a devastating intrusion, infinitely strange. He sucks at it raptly, lost in time. He's aware that, to the girl trapped on the bed and forced to watch, it must look exactly like a vampire draining its prey.
As if he gives a fuck what any Weasley thinks.
Finally, urged by the sense that time is running out, he finds himself back on the surface, pulling away. There's no choice, really. This is an aberration, and now that he's despoiled the Chosen One and shown himself up for the sick bastard he is, it's imperative he go somewhere, anywhere, else. This wasn't his task. As far as Severus can tell, there was no task. It was a ruse or a lie. A punishment sprung on him like a practical joke.
Hair trails in his face, and he turns into it, seeking solace as he releases the boy's mouth. He's got one of Potter's arms twisted nearly behind his back, and his fingers are sunk in Potter's hair. He thrusts his captive away, wishing he could emulate Fawkes and burst into flames. He's already corroded inside, already consumed, on fire with this sickening hunger. Why shouldn't his body mirror his soul and burn up? Only with exultation, not anguish. He wants, with sudden vigour, to flaunt his rebirth. He wants—he—
—what a revolting thought: he wants Potter to be amazed.
The bewitching idiot lands semi a-sprawl the bed. His eyes are dumbfounded, his still-open mouth so red and wet that Severus' half-formed erection blooms full-length, hardening so fast that it almost pulls him off-balance. His prick's girth would perfectly fill the circumference of those soft lips, snag on Potter's teeth, slide throbbing and mouth-stopping along the swollen tongue that Severus has prepared by sucking.
A slight flush lurks beneath the boy's pale skin, and his limbs are spread for a moment, exposed. His cock's curved now, thick, rigid with alarm.
No surprise there. Potter's at the age of inappropriate erections. In Severus' experience, even a greasy half-blood can get a rise out of a teenage boy.
He turns and heads for the door, intelligence fighting desire every inch of the way. Since death wasn't enough, he'll have to free himself of Potter by other means. Wanting is not the same as having, and having is—out of the question. He's lain awake nights, shuddering with hatred, too obsessed to sleep. He's been beside himself with rage so many times over the little snot that it's a wonder he didn't die of stroke before the Dark Lord did him in. Clearly, the closer he is to the boy, the shorter his lifespan.
He should Disapparate and leave Harry Potter behind, one loss among many. Leave him to his fate. Never come near him again. Never feel responsible. Incendio the daily papers, hex the fools who dare to parrot society's praise of the Boy Who Lived. Ignore news of his wedding—for a wedding to this shrieking Weasley is surely in the cards.
He has to let him go.
Fuck. With a snarl at the impossibility of it all, he whirls in the doorway, swings his wand up, and casts. He doesn't need speech for this. The spell sizzles across the room and bursts, sparkling hot from Severus' temper, green and gold across Potter's bare chest. The sudden crack pulls Severus up on his toes, head snapping back in magical whiplash. The boy jumps, but the sparks shower gently down upon him, vanishing on contact with his skin.
Panting, Severus fishes in his lefthand pocket, pulls out their wands, and hurls them to the floor at the foot of the bed. They clatter and roll. His own wand extended but trembling, he digs out Potter's glasses and places them on the chair by the door. His temples prickle with sweat. Exhaustion is hitting him in waves, and he can't stop to question what he's just done. It's time to abandon Hogwarts. To say good-bye.
He takes aim at Ginny Weasley and croaks, "Finite incantatem."
She bounces to her knees with a squeal of pure rage, hair flying, the sheets clutched to her breasts. "You pervert! You disgusting, horrible, filthy flobberworm!" She crashes into Potter, one freckled arm slapped frantically across his chest, patting him, holding him close. "Harry! Are you all right? What did he do to you?"
"I'm not hurt," Potter says sombrely. He doesn't break eye contact with Severus. Neither one is willing to be the first to look away.
But darkness is welling up in the distant background of Severus' soul, and he'll fall into it soon. He still smoulders, but the passion is very far away, the burn of it red-gold, its embers fading. If he doesn't leave now, he never will. They'll have to bury him under the castle's foundations. Mouth dry, he concentrates on Potter, the tip of his wand as sharp as a pin. Legilimens.
For a moment the air between them stretches empty, devoid of anything, singing with silence.
Severus considers his next move. If magic permitted, he'd Apparate into the past, straight into the dungeons. He'd abduct the figment of that raggedy-arsed little hyena who once gave himself with such singleness of purpose, who was willing—dear God, to die for love. Who put his Slytherin faith in a future that never came. This is what Fawkes has restored to him, what Albus may or may not have intended. He will resurrect that child, renew that sworn oath. He has a purpose now. I'll show you. I'll show you all.
He sends his thoughts across the room. Look at me, never mind that the boy's already looking. Never mind that for some reason he hasn't looked away once. Severus embeds his sole demand like a spike. You owe me this much. Let me stay dead.
Potter's brows knot as if in pain. Perhaps he used excessive force. Too tired to care, Severus breaks the connection. He adjusts his wand as if lining up his next shot, waits until Ginny Weasley raises her head, and growls, "Obliviate." Then, without a word to Potter—because he has no words—he spins in place, his robes twisting through the air like a black morning glory. As they furl down around him, he conjures his Disillusionment and distraction spells, and yanks open the door.
Behind him, the redhead cries out, "Harry, what the—why are you— Oh, Merlin, I'm naked. Did we—? Oh God, we did! Why don't I remember? We had sex? But I don't— " A sob of breath interrupts her outburst, then Ginny Weasley yelps, her voice rising, "You Obliviated me! You made me forget! Oh, that—that's terrible! Harry, how could you!"
The stones seal over behind him, cutting off the girl's furious accusations and the boy's denials.
Utter silence descends, the reek of death and Dark magic. Severus glances up and down the burnt-out corridor, but there's no one else to whom he must say good-bye. He rubs his lips. He can still taste Potter. The kiss of life, he thinks, snorting. But it's true. Taking what he wanted only makes him want more, and he'll turn that to account. He will never stop wanting. He'll make a killing—hah!—on what he took from the boy, and in the end it will be worth more than all the words, all the touches, all the sweet, sullen tastes he's forbidden to have. Yes, he'll show them all—he's brill at magic, no matter how many barriers he has to shatter in order to succeed.
Smirking—worse, grinning like the ugly yob he is, lips peeled back on clenched teeth—Severus strides straight for the nearest window, puts on a burst of speed, and with a sudden spin of his heel flings himself at the stars.
A second before his body hits the glass, he Disapparates.