Before he even opened his eyes, he heard his inner voice say, 'I'm going to make all of this right. Today.'
Magic and energy hummed so strongly within, it practically pulled him awake and wouldn't let his body stay still long enough to sleep an extra five minutes, let alone another hour. He marveled at how once his mind was made up, thanks to Draco's video, the decision alone seemed to release reserves of energy and clear the way for definitive action. He believed in himself this morning, and somehow had not all day yesterday, after being dressed down by Snape. Well, wasn't that an illusion that he would not allow to happen again? He showered, dressed, and presented a refreshed version of himself shortly after sunrise.
He didn't give Ash time to cook for them. He left omelets and smoothies for him and Snape, then stole onto Ash's computer and researched remote places in the world, looking for a balance between technological comfort and isolation. He had another meeting with Bicksby that lasted two hours, during which, he came away with his own laptop, fitted with special hardware to allow the CIUM to detect any infiltration of his assumed identity. He also had a plan to go forward with life. Maybe he could disguise himself and coach in some quidditch league. That would keep him occupied for a year, until he could reunite with Draco. He didn't know if he would really do that, but at least it felt possible to allow himself new possibilities. All he needed to do now, was tidy up loose endings here and leave Snape and Ash to their own devices.
He didn't look for the other two all day. He spent the remaining hours practicing healing techniques in his room. Turning the dial over various parts of his own body, inanimate objects, and even perusing studies on healers and their methods all over the world. He was trying to find a common link between his abilities and what authentic healers must already know. Either way, he was determined to heal Snape that evening. He told himself he's been playing around because he wanted more time with him, but the video convinced him to let the past go and move on. It gave him the strength to pull out of an emotional tail spin.
Ash had business in the city and Snape didn't return until late into the evening. Harry was ready for him. From his room, he heard the familiar sounds that stimulated his mind to see Snape in a flurry of arrival, hair fresh with the wind still in it, and his perpetual cloak still carrying a whiff of his flight and all the subtleties of outdoors clinging to him. Some part of Harry drew so near to him, sensing the state of his arrival, that he imagined he could smell the chlorophyllic enzymes of grass and tree pollen on his clothes.
He gave him exactly one hour to settle, before knocking on his door with warmed dinner and an ultimatum.
"Either let me have another go at healing you, or say good-bye to me tonight. I've asked for relocation. It hasn't been approved, but I can still apparate out of here and take some risks, for the sake of putting some polite distance between us."
He stood before Snape, holding the dinner tray. Snape had cleaned himself up and wore a dressing gown that was so dark green, it was almost black.
Harry continued, "And no, I'm not deliberately being difficult. I'm directly responsible for your knee and I just want to make things right before I go."
Snape looked pensive before he shut his eyes against Harry's words. "You don't have to leave. I've made arrangements elsewhere, and I need no one's permission."
Harry groaned. They were still at a stalemate. He sat the tray down and stood there for a moment, thinking. Snape could not be reasoned with, but he needed him to listen. So he began to speak slowly, while lifting a hand to unbutton his shirt.
"Please don't start a contest with me. I need you to hear me out."
Snape opened his mouth like he was going to interrupt, but he saw Harry's fingers crawling down his shirt and abruptly stopped.
"We've both been through things. We both have to let go of the past." Harry felt his arms shaking, not with fear, but with the rush of adrenaline. He knew what he was about to do and he shook the warnings from his mind as they intruded and tried to talk him out of it.
"I know this looks strange, but I ask that you not bolt until you see what I have to show you. I can't reach you deep inside your pain, and nothing I say makes sense to you. You're going to push me away no matter what. But if I show you, if I'm as honest with you as I can be, maybe you'll see that I deserve your respect. I deserve to be taken seriously as an adult. I deserve your friendship, and not your constant threat to run away. You won't look at yourself and work on your own shortcomings, but you're good at pointing out mine. Since you're okay with spying on me when I can't see you, I'm asking you to look at me one last time."
His hands sped up, moving from his shirt to his jeans before Snape could throw him out. He yanked them down and stepped out of them, then shrugged off his shirt and shorts while Snape was still in a state of disbelief.
"I'm not crazy and I'm not my father's reckless, egotistical son. I want you to see this, so you'll know that you're not the only one who has suffered something you'll never get over."
"Cover yourself at once," Snape said sternly.
"No. Look at me. Look at what Voldemort and Lucius did to me."
Snape's voice was cold. "I've seen it. I was there the night Draco brought you to me."
"Then let it be a reminder that you and I should be there for one another. You helped me that night, but you won't let me help you."
"Why are you doing this?" He genuinely appeared confused, as if Harry had not made his point.
Harry was growing frustrated. "Because you're afraid to look at me. You say you can't stand to do it. Well, before we leave each other's sights forever, I thought I'd give you something worth seeing. You think you're the only one living with burdens to shameful to let you get close to other people. You think you have to keep hiding what you've become. Well this is the first time since the curse happened, that I've ever allowed anyone to see it on my body. I don't even let Draco see this. I'm so fucked in the head over it, that my magic automatically concealed it from my own eyes for over two years. I'm only showing you now, because I've figured out how to adjust it. How to shift back.
"I've taken back my power. It's like learning that I'm still me. As ugly as this is, it doesn't stop me from being worthy of my family, of you, of all that life has to offer. I'm standing here like this to make a point. I'm trying to get through that thick skin of yours and show you, you're worthy of love too. You can let yourself get close to people too. Anyone who loves you, will accept your body. You're still running from me like you're running for your life, and that's because that seventeen year-old is still stuck in that room being raped by my father and his friends."
"How dare you!" Snape drew himself up, threateningly.
"Look at me." Harry indicated the embarrassing spectacle of dark downy hair covering the complete absence of his penis. In its place, the subtle mound of a woman's pointed pubis, lay in its place.
"Don't turn my honest into an insult. I literally can't hide anything else. I'm showing you who I am. I'm showing you my wounds. What else do I have to give, to make you see that I'm not the one you should be running from? We can help each other. We can support each other. We can be a non-traditional family. We've both been to hell and back, only I had Draco to pull me out of it. You had no one. Nobody ever pulled you out of it, so you just kept replaying the horror of it over and over again in your mind and you never outgrew the victimhood. No matter how many people you killed for Voldemort or Dumbledore, you never developed beyond your wounds. That's why I can't get close to you. That's why you won't let me fix what I've done. And your favorite excuse is throwing my father in my face. Well look at my pussy. I don't think my dad is exactly beaming with pride at the moment."
Snape had gone sickly and ashen as Harry's nudity pulled his eyes magnetically to that dark and most private of areas.
He said, with a composure unrelated to his glassy stare, "Your father is rotting in hell, where he belongs."
"Don't change the subject. You know I can never make things right as far as that's concerned. But I can show you, that you're not the only victim here and you can stop throwing his crimes in my face. If you leave, it'll be because you're a coward when it comes to the most important thing in life. Love. I'm sorry he did that to you, but I'm telling you that I might know a way to help. You could fight any war, confront any demon, but let somebody in your heart, where you're vulnerable, and you're just another terrified kid who never grew up, in an adult body. Well I have the cure, because Draco cured me. I prefer love over leaving, honesty over abandonment.
"When I do leave, at least I will have done my damnedest to talk to you and gain your trust. I will have tried to offer you real, equal friendship, not that social etiquette shit between student and teacher. I'll never be a master at potions or healing and helping others in that respect. But what I have, is me, pure and plain. That's all I have to give and it's more than enough. And it has nothing to do with what's between my legs. I'm more than that and so are you. I hope you realize that who you are beneath all those layers you hide under, is also more than enough to give another person. I'm not asking you to forgive my father, I'm just asking you to free yourself from whatever prison won't allow you and I to be friends."
Snape finally tore his eyes away and scoffed, "And you think this bit of drama is sufficient to undo twenty years of scorn?"
"No, you are not going to make me feel bad for exposing my deepest fears to you."
In his mind, he turned the dial, intending to manipulate his penis back into existence, and he didn't want Snape to miss it. "Watch this, and tell me I'm wrong for showing you how I've overcome everything that happened to me." he demanded. "Tell me I'm wrong, for wanting to offer you the same relief. Not just physically, but emotionally. You can change your body any time you want. That's not a curse. That's freedom. Please watch this." He willed Snape to look, and the other's head lifted in irate despair.
"For god's sake, Harry… " Snape stopped.
Harry turned the dial slowly, and watched as Snape's mouth hung open.
He tried not to look down at himself as he felt subtle shifting begin. Gravity pulled on his growing penis. The organ took on its extended, hanging form and familiar heat infused the blood in his testicles. It took less than a minute, but Harry slowed it down as much as he could, so that Snape could take in every detail of tissue and form, from his pubic hair, which changed shape and grew from a triangular bed to a more sprawling array that climbed his belly, to the delicate skin folded and concealed, which blossomed forth and unfurled into the swollen organs of plump male genitals.
When Snape was rendered speechless, Harry reached for his discarded clothing. "I wanted you to see this. See me. Not hiding. Not pretending. Just me trying to matter to you and show you that I'm not the pathological victim that you think has to be saved from himself. I'm not as reckless as you think I am. I figure things out. I take risks, but never without gain. I've turned one of the worst things that has ever happened to me, into a mere switch in my thinking. I'm worthy of your friendship. I'm worth sticking around and getting to know. And I deserve better than your abandonment. I thought I'd give it one more shot."
He stopped, unable to speak through the emotion in his throat. His eyes blurred and he let the tears spill, wiping them away. "At least I have the guts to show people who I really am, wounds and all, and still demand love for myself. My god-given right to feel good again. Unlike you. You've given up and you're too far gone, I guess."
He struggled into his jeans. He was too busy fastening his shirt that he didn't see Snape's expression darken.
"Maybe you see James's useless kid begging for more of your attention and thinking way too highly of himself. I don't know. But in case you're missing it, this is life giving you one more chance to connect to humanity. To say you want back in, after twenty years of hating people who need warmth and acceptance. The price is being willing to trust another person with the complete exposure of yourself. I showed you my deepest shame, to make you see that it can be done. And it can be okay. I can get my dick back, but I'm more than any of this. And so are you. Who you are is what matters, not the body you're stuck with. Not the body that holds so much history and pain. If I can show you my pain, you can show me yours. You can trust me. You can stay with me. You can at least forgive me for being his son. I'd give anything to make all that stuff he did, not have happened. Anything."
"Harry…"
His arms shook. "You're still acting like I'm a student, when we've both been dragged through hell and back, and you're still afraid to get close to me, yet you bully me when I try to go. We're both victims! Why is it so wrong for you to be kind to me and see me as deserving your respect, not just your help when I'm in trouble. I'm like you. We could help each other. Who else do I have to talk to? I'm recovering too. You've had twenty years to deal with this atrocity, I'm just now crawling my way out of it. Forgive me if I'm not as good as ignoring pain as well as you are and I might, oh I don't know, reach out to you for comfort. We've been through so much, yet you push me away the minute I require kindness from you."
"How did you do that?"
The question caught Harry off guard. "Your mother showed me how to fix my shoulder. I used the same technique to do this."
"My mother?"
"Yeah, even your mother thinks that you and I could help each other. You'll save my life all day long, but when it comes to sharing who you really are with me, you can't do it. Well this is who I am and I'm sharing it with you because you need to see. I'm butchered. I'm hurting, I'm trying to make up for every wrong thing I've done. Until a few weeks ago, I couldn't even look at this body in a mirror. Not like this. Not showing the curse. But now I'm so determined to never hide myself the way you hide from me, that I'm facing everything. I'm showing you, I'm showing the world. I refuse to live in fear, to let this curse keep me from meaningful relationships. If you can't handle that, then that's your pit in hell, not mine. If you don't want me in your life, then stop stalking and saving me, because I'm not going to pretend that I don't need you to be real with me. Be who you are."
"You and your ceremony of sentiment. You're so full of adolescent emotion, you can't begin to know what you're talking about. You haven't the experience to know what you truly want with all this drama."
Snape's utterance was like inconsequential background noise compared to the deafening sound of Harry's own frustration.
"You're the one who doesn't know what you want. I need a friend right now. Who better, than someone who knows exactly what I've been through. If that's not you, if that will never be you, then let me go. Admit that you're holding on to me as much as I'm holding on to you, and never come looking to save me from anything ever again. I'd rather be completely without you, than have you constantly reject and scorn me. If you really can't stand the sight of me, then let me leave you with something worth seeing."
"Enough!" Snape lashed back. His lips tightened over his teeth. "Do you honestly think exposing yourself is going to make me see the error of my ways? Are you so much like your father, that your only recourse is sexual harassment? I know this may come as a great revelation to your maladjusted sensibilities, but your nudity adds no value to this conversation whatsoever. It's a clever trick, but the shock value wears off very quickly. If you're trying to impress me, use your newfound skills to mend my knee. My delay in leaving has nothing to do with your cock. How you worked that into this discussion, is beyond me."
Harry gritted his teeth. Muscles twitched in his jaw. There he stood in a cold sweat, heaving, trembling, having bared his soul, and Snape was just going to trivialize it? Reduce it to sexual harassment?
There eyes locked, and in that second, Snape reached for his wand and Harry knocked it away with a blast of intention. His arm raised and before he knew it, his wandless hand had mimicked holding the instrument that was long gone, and Snape's wand flew off the bed, out of his reach. He knew that Snape didn't always need a wand, so he added a weight charm that pinned him in his spot. He didn't want to petrify him, just keep him from moving too much.
"Harassment," Harry spat. He quickly reached for Snape's legs and lifted them until he'd managed to get his whole body on the bed proper.
"What are you doing?" Snape's angry voice strained through his reddening face. Harry didn't fool himself into thinking he had him trapped in any way. Snape was too cunning. His best hope was to smooth things over before this Dark Arts expert hit him with something he couldn't block.
"Hold still. I'm not going to do anything crazy, I'm just healing you."
That sounded sickeningly egotistical to his own ears, but he meant it. "I've seen muggles do this. It's called laying on of hands. Hold still."
Snape could still move, but not without tremendous effort.
Harry panted, "My overall feelings wanted you to stay, so I'm fighting with my own intentions. I've caused a stalemate. Actually touching you is like creating a bypass around magic that is already working hard to do what I want. Let me hard-wire this intent to heal you. I know I can. Stop fighting me and trust me this once and I won't stop you from leaving."
He didn't know whether he convinced him or not. All he knew was his own insistence that that knee be repaired at all costs. He'd already made a fool out of himself, so what did it hurt that he ignored Snape's outrage for another minute? He bent all his concentration on feeling the bone structure beneath those warm muscles and strong tendons. He imagined his magic like heat, and as the temperature rose, the dial turned, weaving those torn and swollen fibers together.
But something happened that he hadn't anticipated. In a flash, he shared Snape's body and he peered from Snape's mind. He was looking at Voldemort, red reptilian eyes an all. But not standing or sitting across from him. Beneath him, and that monster's weight bore into him, pushing the air out of his body. They were skin to skin and prickly, horrible knowing drove through him as Voldemort's engorged erection pushed along the soft inner walls of his body. The suction effect pulled Harry beneath the length of him. Shock took his breath. Atop him, hot gusts of excited panting hit him through grinning, pointed teeth as the snake-man leaned in to kiss him. Harry turned his head to escape those blue veins crawling under moist, rice paper thin skin, and disgusting lips that wanted his. As soon as he did, he was back. The momentum of his magic reached peak outpouring and his insistence exploded into a sharp pain that had him screaming and falling backwards.
He was so horrified and disgusted, his scream came from his glimpse into Snape's mind alone, and he couldn't understand the signal from his own body that something was equally wrong with him. Snape was suddenly off the bed and there by his side.
"What in the hell have you done now?"
Harry could only stare at him, linking what he'd just witnessed with the wizard before him. It took a moment to realized Snape had ripped his trouser leg and was peering down at a nasty rupture. Harry couldn't believe it. Blood soaked the cloth around it. The entire length of his leg was sliced in open fissures that bled freely. If he'd been in his right mind, he would've been in excruciating pain. But the encounter with Voldemort was still so fresh, the hairs on his arms stood on end, as they could feel that grotesque touch crawling under his skin. He felt sick and willed himself not to faint or vomit. He stared blankly, letting Snape go through the motions of retrieving his wand and patching him up. Only, Snape could not patch him up.
It was as if Harry's magic had come back into himself, amplified too high and charged too forcefully, blowing out along his veins. Beneath the blood, when he really looked, he could see that the skin of his knee cap had been blown back and bone was visible. He should've been screaming in pain, but his shock was greater.
"Harry, I can't fix this. I'm pouring my magic down a sieve. You have to help or you'll bleed to death."
What did he mean he couldn't fix it? Couldn't he do almost anything? Ash said he'd given his own bone to repair his body.
These were nonsensical thoughts and Harry sat there thinking them until Snape shook him. "Snap out of it!" He took Harry's hand and placed his wand in it, folding his fingers around it.
"You healed me, but you turned all that against yourself. You're the Elder Wand now and I can't fight that, so you have to do this. Repeat after me."
It took several tries and a light slap to his face, for Harry to make an effort and follow his instructions. He repeated the medical spells that cauterized veins while Snape guided the wand in his hand. Harry's attention was so distracted, his will so weak, that after twenty minutes of trying, his leg still looked like the aftermath of a shark attack.
The screaming had sent Ash running. He stood in the doorway, his questions going unanswered for a few minutes, as Snape worked over Harry.
"For god's sake! What did you do to him? Should I get my case?"
"No. He forced his magic to do what he didn't really want to do and it came back to him, releasing tremendous tension. He's injured himself."
Harry's knee was closed properly, but the rest of his open wounds resembled the stitching patterns on a muggle baseball. Most of the bleeding had stopped, but the fissures were still resistant to standard mending spells because Harry's heart just wasn't in it.
All he could think of when he looked at Snape was, 'Eeewwww! That thing was inside you. His smell. His juices. His dick. Eeewwww.'
His mind screamed it, but he had enough decency not to say it. His surface repulsion was just a distraction from his real catastrophic thoughts. Beneath disgust, were feelings too upsetting to look at. Although he had been subjected to Lucius, even he had not met with the maddening position of having to open his legs for all that hideous evil and bearing that filth inside of him. It was tantamount to someone pouring worms inside of him.
He turned away from Snape and started weeping. "Oh my God, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You did that for us. You did that for all of us!"
"What's he talking about?" Ash asked.
Snape could only stare at Harry in this extreme state of hysterics. The most serious damage to Harry's leg, had been lessened, so Snape was free to use his magic. He summoned two bottles from one of the storage cases he kept in the corner of the room. In them, were a pain-reducing tonic and a fast-acting sleeping draught that would have a strong sedative effect. He gently forced them to Harry's lips.
"Drink," he coaxed. Harry was too upset to be reasoned with now.
The boy did as he was told, surprisingly. Harry's head lay against his hand like a child's and a sudden willingness to cooperate made the task easier. It was as if all the fight had dissolved, released by the explosion of all that magic pressurizing his blood vessels. He was as docile as a wounded little boy, somewhat mentally compromised by a traumatic exhaustion, and Snape was almost glad to be handling him so easily.
He and Ash got Harry to his own bed. He levitated him while Ash made sure Harry's head cleared the corners and opened the doors for his unconscious body.
When they had Harry and the mess cleaned up, Snape asked to be alone again with him.
In the dimmed light of the room, he sat on the edge of the bed and shook his head at him. He wished he could believe that he had no idea what Harry's reaction had been about, but he was not a coward and knew that Harry had seen something that required an explanation.
He leaned over him. "I tried to protect you from that. You silly boy. There are nightmares in my mind and I've done my best to keep them from terrorizing the rest of the world. I am the gate keeper of horrors you can't begin to know, and that is as it should be. It's a small price to pay for my crimes. I begged you to stay away from me. I never wanted you to see that or get anywhere near my regrets. I've pushed you away for a reason. Please Harry, let it go. You're a very powerful wizard now. You always were. Let me have my secrets."
After considering Harry's fevered brow, he lifted his weight off the bed, turned out the light, and left.
His words lingered and floated around in the dark, gently seeping into Harry's forced slumber. Harry's dreams were restrained by the potions, and not allowed to overwhelm him. From his dark, sedate calm, he heard those words. From a circle of protection, cast by Snape, he might've been back at the Weasley's house, snuggled in bed next to Ron, for the array of comfort just given to him. Deep in his heart, a smile spread. For he knew now, that as long as he was injured like this, Snape wasn't going anywhere.