English is not my native language, and what you see is a translation (my first) of a story I wrote in 2021. Regarding this: "my first" - be ready to laugh till your sides ache, cause this may turn out to be absurd.
Enjoy!
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More than ever before
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I.
He sits on the iron structure of the bridge, looking into the rushing current of the river roaring a few meters below him. The setting orange sun reflects in the foaming water, glaring into his eyes, creating fuzzy reflections on the lenses of his glasses. A cool breeze brushes his raven-black hair, which sticks up in all directions, tickling his neck and pinching his ears. He thinks that if all goes well, he will still walk into his office in the Auror Headquarters today, pretending that his heart is not stick in his throat, take the papers prepared by his deputy in his hands and fix his gaze on the small print from which his eyes ache, pretending to read, although in fact he will not be able to focus on a single sentence, a single word dancing on his pupils like a light. Not in the face of who will be seated on the opposite side of his desk.
Then the farce will begin, in which both of them will avoid each other's gaze, pretending that they're not as thick as thieves at all, that all these years at Hogwarts they haven't said everything to each other yet, that the only thing left to say is: "forgive me," courteous and tactful: "forgive me," which means nothing - because how do you encapsulate seven years, thousands of insults and just as much sharp burning in the jaw from too long clenched teeth in just two words, three sounds, nine letters?
He clutches his stomach at the very thought of looking into his eyes. Into those black, familiar eyes that have looked at him so many times with cool irritation, with deep rage, with pure, unbridled fury, with throat-clenching pain, with fire and ice and everything in between.
He doesn't know what he will say to him, although he knows what he should: he knows what the entire Department of Law Enforcement expects of him - he, Harry Potter, the head of the Aurors, always cool and unyielding, and doing his duty more than enough; they expect him to look up from his papers, flashing an unyielding pair of green eyes, and then smile softly and begin his tirade: "so, Mr. Snape, you didn't show up to testify when the post-war trials started, you refused to cooperate with the Ministry, you didn't give official testimony regarding the charges against you, you went into hiding and stood up to the group of Aurors responsible for delivering you to the office, I guess you understand that this doesn't put you in a favorable light?". Yes, those would have been the words if anyone else had been sitting in Snape's place; he wouldn't have hesitated for a second, before laying his cards on the table seeing Malfoy, Rowle or Scabior across the desk; but with Snape it was different - different because he knew that when he lifted his face to him, those black eyes would tell him: "I followed you to the bottom and you know it," "I paid for you without a word of objection, I paid with pain and defamation" and: "you have no right to demand even more from me".
How would he explain to him that these were the procedures, that if it were only up to him, he would run away from this conversation for an eternity, that he was actually fretted at the thought of having to find himself alone in a room with him?
Deep down, he hoped that his Aurors would never catch him.
When the news arrives, he's more nervous than he expected of himself; he jumps off the railing into the wide, shapeless puddles spilling over the sidewalk tiles, wondering what to say in greeting to the man he's actually said goodbye to a long time ago.
II.
He played out this scene a thousand times in his mind, in various scenarios. In half of them they were shouting at each other after only a few minutes, in some he was throwing out all his grief, letting it crash on the terracotta floor of the interrogation room (I've dreamed about you, I've dreamed about you for almost two years, about how you bleeding out second by second, until not a single drop of blood remained in your body, until your face turned the color of porcelain and your skin collapsed over prominent bones), in some he closed his eyes, too terrified to exhale anything through his bluish lips.
He would rather face death once again than look into his eyes, empty of too many gnawing memories.
He wonders if he could turn the conversation over to someone else. Snape's voice sparkles in his skull like a torch (you always run away when things get too hard, don't you, Potter?), and deep in his chest something trembles. He is transfixed by the accusatory gaze as cross as two sticks (I've always got your back) and takes a few deep breaths before tossing a handful of Floo Powder into the fireplace, which stains the hem of his robes (is this how you repay me?).
That's not what he's most afraid of hearing. There is something else that makes it harder for him to draw breath. The soft smile, with a hint of mockery, the tilt of his head (I know you, Potter, to the core), the gentleness in his voice that sounds like a warning signal.
No matter how many times he has thought about it, he is not the least bit prepared for what follows. His spine is held straight and his head is raised, and he feels a little stilted as he crosses the threshold of the Auror Office and sends a forced smile to Ivy at the front desk, who - showing all her teeth - informs him that someone is waiting for him. In the interrogation room. He thinks he's ready for this, but as he walks in the direction indicated and stops to look through the venetian glass, he feels like a fish pulled out of water, and his heart loses its steady, monotonous rhythm somewhere.
His hair is a little longer than he remembers, and his face is not as bony as it was during the war. The black robe in with which he is wrapped is as impeccable as it once was (Harry remembers the pallor of his neck, remembers the dark bloodstains on his collar, his own fingers wandering panic-stricken over a vein pulsing madly, and his concentration as he whispered in abandon all the healing spells he once knew, which he studied intensively in the castle library, saying to himself, „I never intend to be helpless again"; until now, he wasn't sure which ones worked). He sits in an uncomfortable chair, upright as a string and with this he somewhat resembles a window dummy. His hands are folded on the tabletop in front of him, his long fingers are interlaced, his gaze fixed on the wall with the same indifference he once displayed in front of Voldemort, and Harry tries to tell himself that it means nothing.
Stephen from the Investigation Department hands him a workbook, and Harry nods in acknowledgement, trying to pretend that he doesn't feel an irritating pain somewhere in his stomach, and for the thousandth time searches in his head for the words with which he would be able to explain anything.
His heart is tugging at his sternum, as if it wants to escape.
He can't delays it any longer. He takes a deeper breath and clears his mind, letting the familiar haze of cool magic calm his racing thoughts. And then he places his hand on the doorknob, which is cold under his fingers, and stifles the shivers whose wave is trying to run down his spine.
III.
„You shot yourself in the foot with this sudden toddle off, because no one with a clear conscience just disappears without a trace".
He throws the workbook on the tabletop in front of him and sits down across from Snape, still not ready to raise his eyes to him; he leans his elbow against the armrest of his chair, he puts his fingers to his temples, dreaming of being a million miles away. Staring into a thick folder, he reaches out and taps the linen cover with his index finger.
„They found so much on you" he says, thanking Merlin that his voice doesn't betray the numbness of his lips, „and I won't even pretend to read it all".
He takes a deep breath - as if before jumping into deep water - and looks up into his face. His black eyes are so very familiar that, for a moment, an invisible peg clogs his throat; they look at him with a strange stupefaction, as if his former professor had not been informed about who would actually be interrogating him.
„I am not omnipotent," Harry breathes, refraining from licking his suddenly dry lips. „I can shout as much as I breathe that you are not a war criminal, but you have to finally break this barrage of silence, because it is your testimony that counts the most".
Snape looks at him as if he was a delusion, a ghost, a maya. Harry's heart rumbles against his sternum, tapping out an uneven rhythm (bum, bum, bum); Snape's eyes, despite the mesh of deep wrinkles surrounding them, are as dark as he remembers them.
„The past never sleeps, you know?" Harry says and rubs his fingers over his temples again.
He thought he wouldn't be able to get the voice out of his throat, thought he'd compromise himself in front of Snape like an ineloquent idiot, but now that he's here, the words are flowing out of his mouth, as if someone unscrewed a tap that can hardly be turned back on. And although he was sure, as he replayed the encounter in his mind, that it would be Snape who would poke him with his sneer (We're gonna remain silent like this till hell freezes over, Potter, or are you going to explain what I'm doing here after all?), now that they're sitting across from each other, it's Snape who stares at his face with slightly tilted lips, his gaze wandering over Harry's features as if he's picking up on changes.
„It seemed to me, Mr. Potter," Snape finally speaks, and Harry can't hide a gasp (he remembers that voice, velvety and melodious, sometimes spoken to him in his sleep, sometimes abrasive like a paper, rough and murky, desperately snarling: "take... them... take... them...") „that I took care of everything so as not to be discovered. What... exposed me?"
Merlin, Harry really didn't think it would be this hard.
He slides his hand over the rubbed cover of the workbook, black eyes sliding down and trace the slow movement of his fingers. Harry stops his hand and his heart goes up to his throat as his fingers tremble convulsively in response to that look. He removes his hands from the desk and folds both palms into his lap.
He clears his throat, silently hoping he's doing it discreetly enough. He wonders if he should ignore Snape's question.
„A lot of minor signals that you have scattered around like crumbs" he replies, tilting his head. „Your new identity, for instance. Samuel Smith? Surprisingly recognizable initials, so to speak. Occupation? Brewer of healing potions for Saint Kentigern. Unremarkable. And even though you moved all the way to Tuscany, you didn't bother to make the Polyjuice Potion. My Aurors came to you... how do they say? Follow the breadcrumbs.
„Well," sighs Snape, to Harry's slight consternation without rebuking him for this unpretentious way of addressing him: „you" „that's commendable." he looks away. „Am I detained?"
Harry feels like closing his eyes and pressing his forehead against the cool tabletop, feels like reaching out and clasping his hand tightly on Snape's pale palm just to make sure he's really here, whole, healthy, alive. He wants to ask him the thousands of questions he still can't find the answers to, and tell him about the taste of his memories in his mouth, about the screams pressed into his hands that are bitten to the bone, about the shock when he disappeared from Grimmauld Place, to which he had the Creature move him when he had already managed to adjust his vitals. He wants to tell him that yes - he is detained - and he is expected to explain, to reason, to confess, but he does none of these things.
„No," he says instead, and falls silent for a moment as Snape looks up at him; a gaze he can't forget, a gaze he has dreamed about a thousands of times, a gaze he last saw only a week ago - deep in his dreams that he desires and hates, that he would rather never dream. „I... just..." all of the sudden he stammers like a fool and falls silent in mid-sentence, closing his eyes, taking a deep breath. „I wish you would explain everything to me. I wish you would tell me the truth".
So many questions are a burden on him, circling under his skull. Why did you run away? Why did you leave me in confusion?
Didn't you know that the moment you disappeared, I would move heaven and earth to find you? That you don't do something like that - that you don't run away moments after your life has been saved?
„I have nothing more to say," announces Snape in a colorless tone, pushing aside the hair falling into his eyelids.
Harry bows his head; his heart flutters in his chest like a frozen nightingale.
„Don't be under any illusions," he says, standing up and moving toward the door, „We're only letting you out because I'm in charge".
IV.
He sees him in the dim light of a Muggle street lamp, whose bulb hisses and flickers as if it is reaching its warranty period - a black silhouette casting a trembling shadow on the sidewalk slabs - as he walks out of the Ministry of Magic late at night, deciding to get some fresh air. He stops and rises his head higher; the silhouette moves and retreats into the shadows, a bit - it seems - of a hurry, as if he doesn't want to be noticed at all.
And Harry, for one second, fears - really fears - that Snape will once again leave him unanswered, disappearing somewhere where his eyes cannot reach.
Before he can get away from him, Harry Apparate at his side and grabs his wrist, and for a moment he feels like never letting it go again. He squeezes it in his fingers, tightly, a bit too tight and his black eyes stare at him from behind a curtain of black hair flowing over his shoulders; he feels the flicker of his pulse under his finger tips. He clamps his fingers tighter on his wrist. Some vague conviction tells him that it will leave a bluish, yellowish-purple mark on his pale skin, but Snape does not try to break free, to twist, to free himself from his grasp, so he does not let go.
„Why are you still here?" he asks, but Snape does not answer. The wind is ruffling their cloaks, tangling their hems as if they were a cluster of writhing vipers.
Harry doesn't let his wrist out of his hand and a thought runs through his mind: „he was standing here, waiting in the rain under the edifice." This thought is sudden and electrifying, as if it leapt through the weaves of his mind like an electron leaving its shell. Snape tilts his head, black eyes leaping over his face; Harry lets go of his wrist, as if he had burned himself with it - it's too warm under his fingers, too real to hold.
Snape leans over his ear. The wind dies down, and Harry holds his breath.
„You're the only one arrogant enough, Potter, to drag me here from Italy," he hears his voice very clearly, as if the wind hadn't blown the words out of his mouth at all, „and then ask what I'm doing here".
Harry tightens his lips and for a moment tries to hold back his words, but a sour snort presses itself on his tongue:
„At least I don't have that much effrontery to pour my whole life on someone and then disappear for a few years".
His skin burns at the spot just behind his ear, against which Snape's breath puffs. It's hot, it's burning, Harry struggles to keep from flinching.
„Is that what I did?" Snape asks, leaning back to look him in the eye. „I poured my life on you?"
The shadow his nose casts on his cheekbone looks like a stain. Harry is tempted to lift his hand and wipe it off his face.
He feels like tugging at his hopelessly high collar and telling him, „you have no idea how many times I've looked back, hoping you'd come back one day".
Severus Snape looks at him differently than he used to (yes, yes, definitely in a different way, it's not the same sharp reflection he remembers), but Harry can't yet tell what's changed in that look - it's a little note that's there now that he's never seen before, a mere glimmer like the afterimages that remain on an eyelid after looking too intrusively into the sun.
Snape doesn't know that he occupies a special, isolated segment in Harry's mind, a segment that is not violated by anyone else, Snape doesn't know that Harry pushes the boundaries of this segment, dips his fingers in and out, breathes deeply, inhales the one specific scent: something like a confusion of heavy potion fumes, dry parchment and ink, but not quite. Snape doesn't know that Harry flinches when he does this - he flinches, but he always reaches there anyway: in the late evenings, in solitude, in seclusion.
Harry looks at his sallow face, which is so vivid, which is so close, at his fingertips, and wonders if he would see a disgusted, nasty grimace crossing his face if he admitted to him, without pardon: „I dream of you".
Snape tilts his head like a curious kitten - as if he heard it - but doesn't run away.
V.
He's not sure how it happened - not a single word was spoken to precede the course of events - but after a while they walk down the street together, arm in arm. And Harry feels as if there is some invisible aura radiating around Snape, preventing him from thinking logically.
Although the evening is crisp, the air seems strangely suffocating.
The thump of their quiet footsteps rings in Harry's ears like snare drums. He hears the rustling of robes gliding over the faulty, crumbling cobblestones and prays that he doesn't catch the tip of his shoe on one of the bumps and make a first-class fool of himself.
There are so many things he would like to ask, but he is afraid Snape will run away from him after hearing the first of his questions, that he will deport himself, blur like a watercolor in water, like a dream on a pupil.
Snape reaches into his robe pocket and takes out a pack of Muggle cigarettes. Harry raises his eyebrows, watching as a skinny thumb lifts the cardboard lid and a slim hand slips him the box invitingly. He refuses with a shake of his head and wrinkles his nose as Snape's long fingers, tinged of yellow at the tips, dig one cigarette out of the packet and put it between his lips.
„I didn't know you smoked," mutters Harry, more to himself than to Snape, as a golden flash of flame balances on the tip of the Potions Master's narrow wand.
Snape inhales deeply, extinguishes the flame, hides the wand in the pocket of his robe and pulls the cigarette out of his mouth, blowing clouds of smoke slowly through his nose.
„There are many things you don't know about me, Potter".
Snape takes another drag and looks at him from above the red embers.
„You won't have any unpleasantness for just letting me leave the Ministry like that?" Snape snaps his fingers; the smoke leaks through his teeth like silver threads of memories so long, long ago.
„I'm the boss there," Harry tilts his head, "I'd like to remind you".
Snape shrugs his shoulders.
„There's always someone above" he mutters under his breath, directing his eyes to the ash accumulating on the tip. „Some deeper hierarchy".
Harry reaches into his hand, drags his fingertips over his fingers and removes a cigarette from between them, and Snape crinkles his eyebrows at him, as if he is almost certain that this one will soon end up in a sewer manhole or under a thick black dragon skin sole. Harry, however, plans nothing of the sort; he puts Snape's cigarette to his lips and squints into his face. He feels a slightly moist filter under his lips.
Snape's one eyebrow arches.
„And what is that?" Snape asks and sounds as if he is teasing him. „The savior of the Wizarding World should not be so degenerate as to inhale this Muggle abomination".
„Really?" lifts his gaze to him, letting those black eyes slip through the hills and valleys of his face. „And what else shouldn't the Savior of the Wizarding World do?" tilts his head.
He did not receive a response.
VI.
They pass a row of old tenements. Harry stretches out his hand and runs his fingers along the rough wall, covered with faded graffiti.
„Tell me everything," he hates the asking note behind his words, but he doesn't let go. „About everything that happened after you disappeared from the Headquarters".
Under his fingertips, he feels peeling, falling paint clinging to his fingernails.
Snape stops under a wide tree, whose leaves rustle quietly in the cool breeze, and sends Harry a long look.
„Have you turned the street into an interrogation room?" he asks not without a sneer, but sounds as if he is stating a fact.
Harry breathes more deeply, trying to maintain logical thinking. He lowers his hand along his body.
„Look, I didn't show these memories to anyone, do you understand?" He lifts his gaze to Snape, crooking slightly as the latter frown. „The only thing that exists is word against word. If you don't want to bring unnecessary trouble on yourself, you should make a statement that is documented in writing. Preferably under Veritaserum".
Snape looks ahead at the squalid metal playground and sandbox overgrown with frayed weeds. He remains silent.
„If you can't talk about it," sighs Harry, „you'll never be exonerated".
„If you weren't looking for me..." mutters Snape, without looking in his direction, and Harry feels an avalanche of cool irritation sweeping along his neck.
„If I hadn't been looking for you," he interrupts, squinting his eyes not without frustration, „sooner or later Kingsley would have found you. And he wouldn't have handle you with kid gloves, but would have found you guilty right away. I'm sorry to say, but you killed Albus Dumbledore, with or without his blessing - it makes little difference if you don't take any steps to put your situation in a favorable light for you as soon as possible".
Snape squats on a crooked bench and tilts his head back, looking up at the star-strewn sky. His face seems frozen like a plaster cast of death, and for a moment he looks as if nothing Harry says matters to him. Harry stands over him, shaking his head, wondering if Snape is taking even a little bit seriously what he is trying to convey to him. Does he even the slightest bit appreciate that he's trying to give him a helping hand before the reporters' hyenas and the voice of public opinion devour him? Harry doesn't understand the indifference on his face - he feels like ripping it off, plucking at it, a whiff of irritation nudging his nervous system as he looks at this man who gives the impression of being made of stone. He feels like shaking him, punching him in the face to get some reaction at last, but instead he closes his eyes and counts to five in his mind.
When he lifts his eyelids, he finds that Snape is watching him from under long lashes casting trembling shadows on his cheeks. Harry skips a glance between those black eyes, empty as dried wells, and leans over him, clasping his hands against the back of the bench, locking Snape in a makeshift trap.
„Why did you run away?" asks Harry, unable to hold back his words any longer, filled with broken thoughts that are boiling over his head, refusing to let him forget. „To this Tuscany. Without a word," he shakes his head; something heavy pulsates in his temples, as if his skull were being pounded from the inside by a jackhammer. „I've cured you, I've rescued you, I've taken care of you, and all it took was for me to go out for a few hours to some dorky gala for the presentation of Merlin's orders for you to vanish into thin air".
Snape does not move, he sits and looks at him, and the vein on his temple pulsates wildly. Harry continues to lean over him, clasps his hands tightly on the edge of the backrest and feels the sharp edge dig into his skin. He knows that for a while he will bear the marks on his palms, long red lines, overlapping one another, forming shallow grooves, and he knows that they will disappear after a few days, healed by the passing of time; he bites his lip and presses his palms even harder against the edge of the backrest of that old, shabby bench - he wants a lasting trace to remain of this encounter, he wants it to etch itself into him before the man looking back at him with a certain unidentified note on his pupil sinks back into the ground, disappearing from his life.
„I don't owe you anything" Snape's whisper slurs over his face, over his nose and cheeks; Harry closes his eyes; his head weighs down as a boulder - the same one cradled under his sternum - bends his wobbly neck, and his forehead hooked to his former professor's prominent nose, but he doesn't back down. He has a somewhat abstract feeling that something is poking a hole in his chest, and he wishes more than ever that his feelings would thin out and fade away. He feels the old, familiar pressure at the bottom of his throat and swallows, trying to get rid of it.
„No," he admits, with the oppressive awareness that the whimsical sensation pulsing under his skin is doing whatever it pleases to his facial features; he straightens up when he finds that another moment and he'll suffocate with that clear, distinctive smell of potions ingredients that has stuck to Snape like a Band-Aid on abrasions, „you're not". He escapes with his face in another direction before allowing his eyelids to lift. He adjusted the glasses slipping off his nose and rubs the shadows under his eyes, which he sees occasionally in the smooth surface of the mirror.
When he hears a quiet sigh and feels the smooth touch of fingers on his hand, he feels his stomach huddle into one hard mass; he holds his breath. His skin burns where Snape's fingertips slide.
Snape captures his - slightly trembling - hand in his own palms and does not let go.
VII.
The bar is in slight decline. It is quiet, dingy and smells of fermented alcohol. They sit at a round, cramped table, stained by the passage of time under a steamed-up window overlooking old, rusted railroad tracks that have long since gone out of use and overgrown with weeds. On the windowsill stand withered aloes with olive-gray leaves and in the corner of the window tangles a silver cobweb that looks like a hank of shaggy threads. A worn out speaker shoved into a dark corner of the room spits out some sounds that are hard to even call music.
Harry takes a sip of the awful coffee, winces with disgust and sets the cup down on the chipped saucer.
„I left," Snape spits out quietly and sounds like he's saying: „I ran away" „because I was sure you would push me into Azkaban as soon as I recovered".
Harry doesn't know what he expected, but certainly not this, and for a moment he feels as if he's been soundly slapped. He looks at Snape, at his large nose, at his deep wrinkles, at the strands of oily black hair falling over his bony shoulders, in disbelief, and Snape squirms uncertainly under his gaze like a child caught breaking a vase.
He suspects he won't be able to form any meaningful sentence after such a statement, but despite the dryness that has suddenly seized his throat and mouth, despite the violent, phantom pain in his scar, he manages to push out through his dry tongue:
„Snape, for Merlin's sake, what are you even saying?"
His former professor fidgets again in a wobbly chair, its legs tapping on the dirt-sticky floor. Harry feels his heart crumbling with each successive, noticeable beat against his chest, as if it were breaking off piece by piece, millimeter by millimeter, turning into powder, into dust, into ash.
„I was a Death Eater," Snape says as sharply as if he wanted to separate himself from him with a permanent wall, but spots as pinkish as raspberries bloom on his jaw, „I turned your parents over to the Dark Lord, I killed Albus Dumbledore. I didn't expect it would take more than that for you to condemn me".
Harry stares at him, feeling like the skin of his face is going numb and for a moment he can't draw breath.
Snape swallows, as if his throat is burning, and wanders his gaze over the shabby, yellowing wallpaper, over the small tables, over the wobbly chairs - looking everywhere but at Harry.
„Or..." he adds; his voice is dry as a bone, but his eyelids are fanning the air as if something has fallen into his eye „or that you will immediately hand me over to the dementors and..." he breaks off and tightens his lips into a thin line, and they turn white like those of a drowning man pulled from the bottom of a lake. His throat moves as he swallows his saliva.
Nausea grips Harry like the monsters of his nightmares, and for a moment he has to breathe deeply through his mouth, inhaling the musty bar air.
„Do you think someone," Harry speaks up tartly and black eyes finally stops on his face, „whose boggart is a bloody dementor," he licks his dried lips, „would just throw another human being to his mercy?".
Snape tilts his head, and something flickers in his eyes, something like a gloom; the muscle above his upper lip twitches and freezes, and Harry crumples the scrap of his cloak nervously in his slightly damp hand. Black eyes regarded him, as if Snape heard under his words much more than they expressed.
„I didn't know," he says slowly, seeming to weigh the words on his tongue, „that your boggart is..." he breaks off and wrinkles his nose, trailing his gaze across Harry's eyelids, across his cheekbones, across his neck, and Harry laughs nervously, which sounds like he's crying, and wraps his fingers around his cooling teacup.
„It's strange that you didn't know," mutters Harry, biting his lower lip anxiously, „I thought..."
He sucks on the right side of his lip and wanders his gaze over the cracks formed by the network of scratches on the graying ceiling. When a sudden flash of touch pierces his hand, Harry nearly spills the wretched café noir swirling in his cup; the softness of the skinny fingers that clench on the top of his palm seems to penetrate his skin, as if bones, cartilage, tendons were absorbing it, and Harry loses feeling in his fingers for one second.
„That what, Potter?" wrinkles skinny eyebrows at him. „That I am omniscient?" he snorts.
He feels like collapsing to the ground when he realizes that the muscles of his hands are trembling under Snape's fingertips as if set into resonance.
„Mhm" he mumbles „something like that".
And when Snape begins to laugh - quietly, deeply, sincerely - it flashes through Harry's mind, whose knees are softening, that he (impossible, impossible, impossible madman) is irretrievably lost.
VIII.
He doesn't quite remember the moment when he noticed that Snape was also watching him; that he was contemplating the outline of his scar on his forehead, running his fingertip along the wall of the teacup in the shape of a lightning bolt, that he was shifting his gaze along the shallow wrinkles that blossomed radially at the corners of his eyes, that he was glancing at his lips pressed against the edge of the teacup, trailing - rather involuntarily - a finger across his lips.
He sits so close to him, at that narrow, round table, and watches him as if Harry was something complicated, as if he had ciphers or numerological equations written on his skin that are beyond the compass of Snape's brain.
And when the aging barmaid walks up to them, swaying her plump hips, and smiles a fake, oversweet smile, asking: „How about lighting a candle for you, darlings?" waving a lighter in front of their noses, Snape looks daggers at her and turns crimson, while Harry stretches his lips in a small smile, nods and reaches his hand over the sticky tabletop.
The barmaid lights the candle's wick, Harry muscles wrinkle-strewn temple with his knuckles, and Snape freezes in stillness as if petrified. And Harry recognizes it as a small, quiet victory when Snape doesn't spurn his hand, but allows Harry to catch his eye, trying to hide the tenderness behind screwing up his face, which doesn't come out as crooked as usual.
IX.
„I made a plantation," Snape tells him, and Harry only looks at him, at his moving lips, his slightly closed eyes, his own fingers drawing paths across his face. „I planted vines and olives. I received a concession to grow white rice".
Harry imagines Snape wearing a wide-brimmed hat, strolling through the farmland in a short-sleeved shirt, and lifts the corners of his mouth, breathing more deeply.
„I earned it by delivering potions to their magical medical facility," Snape breathes, looking somewhere at the wall above his shoulder, which is full of smudges and scratches. „I felt... good," he glances at Harry. „There were no powerful wizards there to be served".
The trembling flame of the candle is reflected in his black eyes; Harry watches the trails that the gleam draws on his irises. Strangers glide through the streets like shadows, as if the night is calling them into its embrace - they pass over the old railroad tracks, looking around to the sides, as if they are expecting a ghostly train, gliding along the rusty rails that break off in the thicket.
„In the evenings I read books I was never supposed to read," he shrugs his shoulders, as if shaking off the invisible fluff, „and drank wines I made myself".
He falls silent and raises his hand to his face, capturing Harry's fingers exploring the smooth skin of his chin. He doesn't flick them away, just runs his thumb over the soft pads and bitten nails from too long stressful situations. Harry watches this, and the saliva he swallows refuses to go down his throat.
„Did you have someone?" He asks, before biting his tongue, and Snape skips a glance between his eyes.
„Not permanently," he reaches out his hand for a cup and stares into its empty bottom. The corpulent barmaid must have peeped at this movement, because after a moment she stands over them with a notepad and shows yellow, crooked teeth.
Snape glances at her reluctantly, as if she were a bug perched on the bar counter.
„Shall I serve you something else?" She smiles broadly and smirks with plump lips, and Snape grimaces as if he swallowed a lemon.
„Two glasses of water, please," Harry replies with a smile, and the woman closes the small notepad without writing anything in it, mumbles something to herself under her breath and walks away toward the counter.
Black eyes follow her as she is bustling about the bar, picking through bottles tightly stacked on narrow shelves.
„These were rather..." hesitates Snape, still following the actions of the woman serving them, as if making sure she doesn't refill their glasses with anything more than water; Harry restrains the urge to sigh at this with resignation „rather fleeting romances", Snape adds, and then wrinkles his nose and shakes his head before turning his impossibly black eyes on Harry, who absorbs his every gesture, who fixates on his every word. „Although no," Snape mutters under his breath, looking at him as if he's thinking about something. „It was actually just occasional sex with strange men".
For a moment, Harry forgets how to breathe and knows he's tilting his lips slightly and squinting his eyes as a faint, fuzzy light comes on in his mind that he can't quite put an accurate interpretation to. His heart thumps once, very hard, against his sternum, as if to make him think about why Snape gave him the answer in the first place and why it sounded the way it did.
His mouth is dry. He really needs that water.
X.
Harry doesn't know how it happens, but they buy two bottles of turbid, cheap fruit wine and sit down on the rungs of horizontal ladder in the empty playground covered by the night. Clutching the neck of the cool bottle, Harry tilts his head back and looks up at the stars.
„I'd drag you back to England even if I had to search the entire cosmos, you know?" he mutters; the wine hums pleasantly in his head, and the glass is slightly slippery under his fingers.
Snape takes the bottle from him and takes a deep gulp. A few drops escape from the corner of his mouth, and Harry is tempted to reach out a hand and wipe them off his chin, but he doesn't. Instead, he swallows saliva, following the claret drops as they soak into his high collar. Harry wonders how many scars find their hiding place behind it. Snape's throat moves as he swallows, and Harry squints, smiling under his breath, feeling like pressing his fingers against that long neck.
„You've been my eternal remorse," Harry admits, saying it probably only because it's nighttime, they're alone, and he got slightly tranked up.
„Wasn't it the other way around, Potter?" Snape snorts, handing him the bottle, but when Harry wants to take it from him, he holds it up and doesn't let go.
Harry lifts his gaze to his large, black eyes and sees the reflection of the stars in them. It flashes through his mind that Snape has Amortentia hidden in his eyes, Amortentia that radiates its vapors to him, stirring his mind and sharpening his alcohol-dulled senses.
Drops of wine drip from his skinny, slightly bony fingers as he reaches out and smooths Harry's windswept hair; his heart rumbles as if it wants to jump out of his chest and Harry catches himself watching the narrow lips that move unhurriedly. He has to exert his gray cells to make the spoken words reach him.
„It's not exactly that I couldn't escape once they came for me," Snape breathes slowly and tilts his head as if pondering his own words; his fingers are tangling, then untangling a strand of Harry's hair. „I may have gotten caught".
He thinks that if those long, slick fingers don't stop playing with his hair any time soon, he won't vouch that he'll manage to keep his hands to himself.
Snape blinks and looks at his fingers playing with Harry's hair as if it didn't belong to him; and then withdraws his hand, with which he earns himself a slight, snotty sigh full of reprimand. He ignores it and looks around the dark playground, while Harry puts the bottle to his lips, watching the sharp profile of his face.
„It's strange," mumbles Snape, tilting his head, and Harry notices one hole in the collection of scars on the pale skin of his neck, to which he feels like putting his fingertip, „that there isn't some sort of hooliganism going on here".
Harry mutters in response and imagines the taste of lips, tinged with wine. Snape's lips and tongue are now a similar color - a map of dark claret marked with flecks of lighter red. He could trap his face in a rigid wooden frame and hang it on his wall opposite his bed.
Snape sighed and nodded, as if he had made up his mind and then rolled up the left sleeve of his cloak, following his words:
„Let me show you something".
Harry opens his mouth to reply, but can't find the slightest words as he follows Snape's long fingers calmly pulling up the equally black sleeve of the robe over which his cloak is draped with eyes. He licks his suddenly dried lips.
When his eyes stop on the pristine white skin, he holds his breath for a brief moment, having the feeling that something inside him is crackling loudly and shattering into tiny splinters. His throat tightens. His lips tremble as he stretches out his fingers and drags them over the spot where the Dark Mark should be.
Snape flinches at the touch, and Harry - with his heart standing like a stake in his throat - lifts his gaze to him, knowing, knowing full well, that everything he's been holding back all this time is pouring out of him like an overturned glass. And he can no longer hold back. He grabs a handful of Snape's oily black hair, dips his fingers into it, palm up, and covers Snape's lips with his own.
His tongue tastes of wine.
XI.
He grabs Snape's hand and leads him through dark streets flooded with faint yellow street light, and Snape just follows him, passing dark, sleepy storefronts, old, crumbling tenements and overflowing trash cans, and Snape just follows him, climbing the crumbling stairs of a cheap motel renting rooms by the hour. And Snape just follows him. He lets him pick up the single key from the bored woman at the front desk, hidden behind a black-and-white newspaper, lets him pull himself through a dark hallway where a fluorescent light burns out with a hiss, lets him put the key in the lock of the creaking door and move into a room that reeks of sex and cigarette smoke, where the only clean thing seems to be slightly yellowed sheets that smell of starch.
Harry lets go of his hand and gives him a few moments to step back before closing the door, but Snape stands there, in the middle of the dingy room, looking at him, and Harry wonders if he has ever seen so much light in his black eyes.
Harry licks his dried lips, approaches Snape, throws off his shoulders an unbuttoned cloak, which lands on the dirty, cold floor, stirs up clouds of dust in the air, and drags his hand along the even row of buttons running from the collar down his robe.
„Take it off," Harry asks; his voice, which he takes in with a stab of displeasure, is slightly hoarse.
The corners of narrow lips twitch and move millimeters upward, black eyes travel slowly - almost appraisingly - up and down his slender figure, and Harry feels himself blush. And he unconsciously holds his breath as Snape walks up to him, embraces his hot neck with a cold hand, sending a series of pulses down his body with it, and leans over his face.
„Know that for every time you lower your gaze," he mutters, and Harry gasps - his voice is too deep, too intense to listen to without violent heart palpitations „you are due a kiss" and drags the tip of her tongue across his lips.
If at this moment Severus Snape had told him to chase dark wizards for the rest of his life, or to drop everything and flee the country with him, or to go through fire and water for him, Harry would have done it without a second thought.
XII.
Black eyes stare at him from behind the white sheets, his head tilts as he waits for Harry to slip into bed, and Harry looks at the narrow lips on which the shadow of a smile flickers. He breathes in a fast rhythm, admiring the skinny clavicles cutting away at his skin, casting his eyes over the long neck on which a series of tiny scars flicker, and the inhaled air stumbles over his teeth as his eyes encounter soft, smooth forearms.
Standing on the bedside table, wobbling on asymmetrical metal legs, the clock indicates half past two.
An old 1950s radio plays quietly in the corner as Harry pushes the edge of the bedding aside and the spring mattress bends under his weight.
His lips search for the tiny as punctures, parchment-white scars on his long neck, and Snape tilts his head, letting him reach them. Black hair contrasts with pale skin as it spills over his shoulders and back. His hand dips into the starched quilt, he clenches it into a fist, and a moan erupts from his exposed throat, where Harry's hot, nimble tongue begins to wander. This moan shakes Harry's muscles. He feels dizzy.
Snape turns his head and watches him as he blinks his eyes as if he can't see the light. His skinny, long fingers reach up to his face, and the way they pull his glasses off his nose can be called gentle.
And then those same fingers stroke his shoulders and neck and Harry can't, can't help himself, even though he promised himself just a moment ago that he wouldn't rush, that he would dose himself with pleasure, that he would take it all, but bit by bit; now he grabs Snape's impossibly skinny arm, stuck his nails into it, stuck his fingers, and attacks his jaw, his throat, his collarbone with his mouth, tastes it with his tongue, pinches it with his teeth, throws his leg over him, presses him against the mattress, until Snape starts wriggling underneath him, and breathing faster, and jerking his hips spasmodically, and throwing his head back, letting a growl and a hiss and a moan escape up his throat that sound like his flesh is burning, like his skin is on fire; Harry can't tear greedy lips from his face, a fingers from his waist, a hips from his thigh, and a torrent of heat expands in his chest that he can no longer keep under control.
Snape tears his hands from the bed linen and grabs Harry's hair, pulling him away from his shoulder and cursing hissily under his breath; an impression of the teeth blooms red on the white skin. And then, so fast that Harry draws breath with a whistle, he switch their positions, grabs Harry's narrow hips and slides down (the room spins in Harry's eyes like colors in a kaleidoscope).
He squirms, unable to withstand the touch of those firm, cold fingers that dig into the bone on his hip as if they want to imprint a maze of fingerprints on his skin, and a muffled whimper escapes his lips as Snape takes him in his mouth.
And when Harry bites into the pillow to stop the scream, Snape shakes his head and says: „no," and pulls the material from between his teeth, and Harry moans as the words reach him: „I want to hear you" and: „let me hear you".
He bites his lip and looks away like an abashed child, feeling that the blush has already reached his neck and is slowly starting to spill down his collarbones.
And in accordance with Snape's will, he ends up with an uncontrollable scream reverberating off the scratchy wallpaper falling off the crooked walls.
XIII.
Snape plots hot paths with his fingertips along his arm, and Harry tries to focus on his breathing - which is not as easy as he remembered.
„Why did you let them bring you to me?" asks Harry, and though he tries to sound confident and firm, his tongue tangles in his mouth - just like when he was only eleven years old and earned himself another one of those tedious, endlessly detentions.
Black eyes glance up at him, but after a moment they settle on the ceiling again. Harry sighs.
„I wasn't able to tell if you wanted me, you know?" He mutters stupidly and wriggles in the pale, long arms. „I was afraid..." bites his tongue and turns his gaze back to the wall; telling himself to finally shut up and stop snapping beak.
Snape turns his head and puts his lips to his temple, and Harry's tongue sticks to his palate.
„I guess I'd like it a little too much," Harry dares to reveal, blinking fiercely as some fuzz falls into his eye, „to stay that way till the end of time".
Narrow, slightly reddened lips find his own and that's enough of an answer for him.
Rain rattles audibly against the tin sill.
XIV.
Harry twists on his side and looks at the sharp profile of his former professor. He looks as if he is asleep; his eyelids are lowered and his chest ripples slowly like the ocean at night. Harry looks at his long eyelashes, sharp cheekbones, narrow eyebrows; reaches out and runs fingertip over his lips.
Eyelids twitch like moth wings and tilt slightly. Harry sees the haze in his eyes as black as the night sky, as if he has smoke under his eyelids. He listens to the drops drumming on the windowsill and the wind whistling against the panes. Snape mutters and twists his head, dipping his pale cheek into the collapsing pillow; his black hair pours onto the linen.
„Will you give your testimony this week?" half asks, half begs Harry, putting forehead to his skinny collarbone.
Snape slowly moves his fingers across Harry's head and smiles sleepily. A single hair catches on his fingernails.
„Only because you ask me to".
As Harry closes his eyes and hides his face in the hollow of this skinny neck, slowly inhaling the intoxicating smell of the man lying next to him, he thinks about getting up in the morning and making each other a cup of black coffee.