Fic update: In Between Days (34/34)
Title: In Between Days (34/34)
Pairing: HP/SS
Rating: NC-17 overall
Summary: Snape kidnaps rescues kidnaps Harry. Starring AmbiguouslyTrustworthy!Severus and ClinicallyDepressed!Harry.
Notes: God. Okay. I don't even know what to say about this anymore. I have a giant list of people to thank that really starts with minervacat [who, when I said a year ago "OMG MIN I WANT TO WRITE THIS STORY WHAT DO I DO," said "write it" and not "OMG YOU'RE INSANE"] and includes a bunch of RL people who have listened to me and plotted with me and not killed me for this obsession. And a bunch of other people. Anyway. Um. This is it, yo. There is a very good chance there will be a sequel, but it won't happen for quite a while. Please don't pester me about it. I will try to get this up somewhere that's not LJ later tonight. Read the entire fic here. Lyrics to In Between Days are here; the song probably informs the fic more than it should. And I need to stop rambling and hit the damn post button. Gah. Okay. Previous chapters here.
---Hermione looked nervously over her shoulder at the corner where the voice had come from. "Sir, I don't know if Harry wants-"
"Granger, I don't give a damn what he wants. Out."
She looked back at Harry, eyes wide and surprised. Harry was sitting stock-still, something small and terrifying wriggling through his chest. Somehow he nodded at her, and she fled as if her legs couldn't carry her fast enough.
Harry swallowed and squinted towards the voice but couldn't really see anything. He had no idea where his glasses were. And then a shadow unfurled from the corner, and there was Snape. Harry watched, frozen and frightened, as Snape crossed the room, stopped next to the bed, and folded his arms over his chest. He was very much alive, staring down his nose at Harry with no expression whatsoever.
It was like resisting the Imperius, Harry thought, split down the middle and caught somewhere between wanting to throw himself at Snape and wanting to kill him all over again and get it right this time. But his body had its own idea, and the next thing he knew, he was pitching clumsily over the side of the bed. Snape caught him before he hit the floor, and Harry had a brief moment of pure, shattering relief as he was hauled up hard against Snape's familiar form. He smelled like-like-
"For Merlin's sake, Potter," Snape snapped, clearly irritated. He slid one arm under Harry's knees and picked him up, cradling him close to his chest. For one crazy second, Harry thought Snape might hold him like that, and he tried to wrap his arms around Snape's neck but they wouldn't quite cooperate. But Snape set him back in the bed and stepped away; Harry tried not to whimper.
His mouth worked soundlessly for a long time as they stared at one another, and then Snape crossed his arms again and raised a challenging eyebrow, and Harry managed to get the word "how" out of his mouth.
The eyebrow climbed a little higher, and Harry's internal scaled tipped a little towards trying to kill Snape again.
"The gaes?" Harry asked, voice still not quite his own. "But you said it wouldn't work on the-on the-" He couldn't say it. He didn't know how he'd ever said it.
"The Killing Curse," Snape supplied, his voice glacial. "I did. And you, as usual, took my word for it rather than bothering to verify it on your own."
Harry took a deep breath. He felt too fragile to argue with Snape, and he was scared of the thing inside him, coiled tight and quiet but eating his control. "You should be careful what you say to me right now, Snape."
"Perhaps," Snape said. He sat down in the chair recently vacated by Hermione and stretched his long legs out in front of him, the gesture maddeningly casual. "I'm careful what I say to everyone, Potter. All the time." He paused, his sharp gaze roaming over Harry's body, eyes bright in the semi-darkness. "How do you feel?"
Harry really didn't know. He felt like he was on the edge of something dangerous and dark, about to fall in, so full of conflicting emotions he wanted to scream. Or make Snape scream. He couldn't breathe. "I-I can't-I don't know how you can ask me that," he said in a low voice. "I don't know how any of this can be happening."
"I cannot answer questions you don't ask, Potter," Snape said, familiar words in familiar tones, and Harry was falling apart. He didn't know how he was supposed to believe anything Snape said.
"No. You're a fucking liar," he said through his teeth, suddenly chattering. "I can't believe you. And I don't care what you told them, what you did. You're a traitor."
Snape rolled his eyes. "I refuse to have this argument with you, Potter. You heard what Granger said. If you wish to continue believing I betrayed you, so be it." He got up to leave.
"Sit. Down." The lights flickered in the room and everything seemed smaller for a second, darker, and Harry felt his magic churning dangerously through himself, through the room.
Snape sat down.
"You did betray me," Harry said, voice wavering. "You could have-you should have told me."
Snape snorted and ran a hand through his hair. Harry's mind caught on those hands, on what they felt like on his skin, what those long fingers felt like inside him. He bit down on his tongue, hoping the small, sharp pain would help him focus.
"Had I told you the plan," Snape said, as if Harry were four years old, "you never would have been able to summon the force necessary to kill him. It called for hatred, boy, and pure, cold rage. We all would have died."
"I've plenty of hatred, now," Harry snarled.
"I'm aware of that," Snape said softly.
"It was all a game, wasn't it? God," he choked, feeling like he was going to be sick. "The things I did, let you do to me. I thought-and it was just to make it hurt more. Just to make sure I'd be angry enough when you-when he-fuck." Harry was shaking, about to explode with whatever ugliness was inside him, and he was vaguely aware of the lights in the room flickering again.
"Calm yourself, Potter," Snape snapped in his classroom voice, and Harry was so accustomed to obeying it that he tried for a few seconds, breathed around the hole in himself, made the thing inside him stop moving.
"All right," he spat. "What if I'd listened to you? What if I hadn't trusted you, and we'd never-I didn't-"
Snape's jaw clenched and he closed his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose for a while. "No," he said quietly. "You didn't." His voice was so soft Harry had to strain to hear him.
It almost sounded like- "Are you sorry?" Harry asked him. If Snape were sorry, if there was just one sign he actually cared...
Snape dropped his hand and arched an eyebrow. His eyes were clear. "For doing what needed to be done to rid the world of Voldemort? Hardly."
"No matter what it did to me."
"Nor anyone else."
Harry swallowed and looked at his feet. "But you made me a-" He couldn't say it.
Snape, as he should have expected, had no such qualms. "A murderer?" Harry tried not to retch. "Yes. Welcome to the ranks, Mr. Potter. As you're clearly so torn up about it, I'd think you'd be relieved to find me alive." He paused, and Harry could hear the smirk in his next words. "But don't worry. Your secret is safe with me."
Harry clenched his jaw, closed his eyes, and counted to twenty. "What does that mean?"
"It means that I haven't told any of your sycophantic hangers-on that you cast what really should have been an extremely successful Killing Curse. Gaes aside, it knocked me out for several hours. But I don't suppose you did anything sensible such as check for a pulse?"
Harry sighed.
"I thought not. Really, Potter, you could save yourself-"
"Stop," Harry said. Snape shot him a bemused look, but stopped talking. "The spell that killed Voldemort. What was it?"
"I've absolutely no idea."
Harry sagged against the pillows, and Snape sighed. "Talk, Potter. Miss Granger was right. You've been here over a week, and your refusal to speak to anyone is not helping."
"Like you care."
"Not at all. Which is all the more reason not to bother lying."
Harry frowned. That was an odd thing to say. But it wasn't like Snape was going to be disappointed. "There's something inside me," he said. "It's-alive, I think, or wants to be. Something dark. I feel like I'm on fire. Or would, I think, if I weren't drugged out of-if I weren't drugged."
Snape's gaze sharpened and there was a sudden tension in his posture as he stood up, turned up the lights, and leaned over Harry. He ran his hands over Harry's face, down his neck and arms, cool and impersonal. It made Harry want to scream.
Snape sat back down, leaned back in the chair, steepled his fingers, and studied Harry for what seemed a very long time. Finally he said, "Your semi-intelligible groping for appropriate descriptors actually managed to hit upon the proper term. Something dark. Everything dark, in fact."
Harry fisted his hands in the bedsheets. "I don't know what that means."
"Have you any desire to be the next Dark Lord?"
Harry gaped, blinked, and then retched over the side of the bed.
"I shall consider that a no."
"What-how-god." Harry didn't even know what he wanted to ask. He just wanted it to stop. "Make it stop."
Snape's jaw clenched again. "It doesn't stop, Potter. It just-lessens."
Harry's eyes narrowed. "You sound like you know."
"Of course I know," Snape snapped. "I do have some experience with these things."
"You're not covered with it," Harry said. "It's all over me. Every inch. And it-before, it was oozing out of me, like blood."
Snape's eyes sharpened again, and he pursed his lips. "It's a matter of control, Potter. I assume-and really, this is pure conjecture, as I haven't seen it carried to this extent before; we should consult the headmaster-I assume that if you stay away from the Dark Arts and learn to master your rage it will fade with time. But it will never leave you completely."
His rage wanted to punch Snape in the face. "You did this to me," he snarled.
Snape inclined his head. "Yes."
He ground his teeth. "Why? Was it the plan all along? To kidnap me and isolate me and make me-make me-I don't know. Not hate you? So you could turn me into some monster? Is that why you-god."
Snape sighed again and shifted in his chair. The next words came slowly. "You are extremely powerful, Potter, but you're also a rash, reckless, impulsive fool. You are ruled by your emotions. I turned that to our advantage, and I will make no apologies for doing so."
Harry opened his mouth to retort but snapped it shut again as something tugged at a corner of his brain. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to listen to what Snape was telling him. You're a rash, reckless, impulsive fool, Potter-and suddenly Harry knew, with perfect clarity, what had happened that day in the library, when Snape had stopped mid-insult. That's when he'd decided. The strange pause, and he'd just used the same words, and Snape was always careful about his words, and Harry could only assume Snape wanted him to figure this out. Some of the tightness in his chest eased; by then, they'd already started sleeping together. So maybe it hadn't been the plan all along.
Unless. He groaned and dropped his head back on the pillow. "There's a problem with this, Snape," he said.
"With what?"
"I know what you're trying to say," he told Snape, although he was still looking at the ceiling. "Although why you can't just bloody say it is a mystery. But how am I supposed to believe you? How can I know it wasn't really the plan all along, and you got your bright idea just so I'd think you got your bright idea?" He finally did look at Snape, whose eyebrow was arched slightly as he listened. "It was obvious," he said. "You're not obvious. Ever."
Snape snorted. "Unless I need to be. And with you, Potter, it rarely pays to be otherwise."
"And with you it's all about what pays, isn't it?" He dug his fingernails into his thighs to keep from digging them into Snape's face.
Snape lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug. "I am what I am. You knew that all along. Or would, had you listened to a word I said."
"Don't you try to blame this on me," Harry yelled. "Don't say this is MY fault because YOU warned me!"
"It's no one's fault, Potter," Snape said irritably. "But the fact remains, I did warn you."
"So what was the point if you didn't let me listen? Just to make you feel better about the whole thing? I can't even-I feel like I'm talking to an alien."
"Speak with a lot of aliens, do you?"
"Snape. Shut up."
"Are we finished, then? Term begins tomorrow, and I have classes to prepare for."
Harry almost laughed. Snape couldn't just leave and prepare for classes like everything was normal, like nothing had happened and they were just going to go back to their regular lives. "No! I-I'm having you sacked."
Snape's eyes narrowed. "On what grounds?" His voice was soft and dangerous, and Harry clenched his jaw, refusing to be intimidated.
"For-for raping me."
"Ah." Snape's face cleared and he leaned back in the chair, crossing his legs at the knee. "I see."
Harry stared. "That's it? You see? You're not going to-"
"To what? If you're intent on dragging our sex life through the media, Potter, far be it from me to stop you. Tell me, do you intend to share my opinion of your performance?"
Harry growled in frustration. "STOP!" he yelled. "I just-" He broke off with another growl. "There really aren't words for how much I hate you."
"Oh, there are. You've said them. We're beyond that now."
That stopped him short. "What's beyond hate?"
"Indifference," Snape said pleasantly, and stood up.
Harry exhaled sharply. He'd forgotten how much talking to Snape could feel like getting repeatedly gut-punched.
"Shall I call the headmaster and commence with the unpleasantness?"
Harry shook his head frantically, knowing that if Snape walked out that door, it was over. Whatever 'it' was. And it couldn't be over until Harry knew, one way or another. He curled his fists into the sheets and closed his eyes, willing himself to calm down, trying to gather up all the things he knew about Snape into one place so he could ask the right questions.
"Please," he said, eyes still closed. "I just-I need to understand."
A rustle of robes. "What is there to understand? I used you, Potter, and Voldemort is dead, and you're once again a hero, and I'm once again a traitor. Congratulations on a game well played."
Harry tried to ignore the bitterness in Snape's voice. Or, better yet, he just needed to ignore everything remotely personal Snape said. He kept his eyes shut. "Why did-"
"Potter."
Harry took another deep breath and opened his eyes. Snape was back in the chair, legs crossed, watching. "Yeah?"
"Why are you trying so hard?"
Harry felt the anger start to crawl across his skin, but he reined it in. There hadn't been any cruelty in Snape's tone; he was actually asking. "I don't-" Harry bit off the rest of the sentence as Snape's eyes shuttered. "Wait. Let me-try to explain."
Snape sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Don't bother," he said. "It doesn't matter. This is madness."
"It's not," Harry insisted, although he knew Snape was right. It was. "It's not. I just-I thought."
"Doubtful."
"Stop. I need to know if-" He broke off to think about what he needed to say. If he just asked Snape if he cared, Snape would sneer and say no and that would be that. "I'm trying because, because it's been a while. Since there was anyone else." It had been a bit strange to talk to Hermione. He was too used to just Snape.
"I kept you isolated on purpose, Potter," Snape snapped. "For just that reason."
"I know," Harry said. "That wasn't-that's not what I meant."
"Say what you mean to, then. I've not got all day."
But Harry didn't know what he meant. He didn't know how he felt. He didn't like Snape, and he didn't trust Snape, but-"You know me," he said finally, meaning it. Snape knew him better than anyone, now, and understood him. And he was scared of the thing inside him, but there was no way to deal with it on his own. He tried to look at Snape, but couldn't do it, and stared at his feet instead. "I think, with everything-I need that. Need-something." He swallowed. "You."
He glanced up at Snape, who snorted. "You've no idea what you need."
"But you do," Harry said quietly, looking at his feet again. "You always do."
"Yes," Snape snapped. "And I am last on the list. You've said it yourself. I turned you into a monster."
"So fix it."
"I'm not-"
"Nice?" Harry cut in with a harsh laugh. "Believe me, Snape, I know-"
"Interested," Snape snarled, cutting into Harry's sentence and startling him with the sheer vehemence in the word. "I am not interested. In you, in taking care of you, in whatever arrangement you believe you are proposing, in any of it. I am not interested. I did what needed to be done, and now it's over, and I want you out of my life. Believe me, boy, we are very well quit of one another."
Harry's vision went blurry around the edges and he gripped the rails on the bed. He could feel the ugliness building inside him, black under his skin. He bit his tongue until he tasted blood and his vision cleared, and he turned to look at Snape. He was breathing heavily, his hands white-knuckled on the arms of his chair. Not so indifferent, then.
Careful, Harry thought. Careful. "All right," he said, his voice dull and thick and far away. "On one condition."
Snape's hands tightened further, and for a second, Harry thought he was going to argue. But then his lip curled and he spat out, "Name it, then. Whatever you want, Potter. Name your price and I shall pay it. Just let me go."
Harry nodded slowly and swallowed. "What do you want?"
Snape blinked and frowned in quick succession before his face blanked and the eyebrow went up. "I believe you are the one making demands. I've named my request."
"No," Harry said, shaking his head. "All those favors to be named later. It's later. If we're to be quit of each other, I shouldn't owe you. So what do you want?"
Snape stiffened in his chair, his jaw clenching. Harry felt like he was going to throw up, but he kept his eyes on Snape's. He had no idea how long the staring match lasted, but then Snape swore under his breath and shook his head. "No," he said. "No favors. You're absolved. You owe me nothing." He stood. "Have a nice life, Mr. Potter."
Harry tasted glass in his mouth, sharp and overwhelming, and he reached for the thing inside him. It engulfed him and erupted in a single word: "Legilimens."
Snape hit the ground as Harry slammed into his mind, but he was able to throw Harry out almost instantly. But it was too late, too late. Harry knew. And then Snape was at his throat, white and shaking with rage, hands fisted in Harry's hospital gown. "You stay out of my head, Potter," he growled. "You stay out of my head and stay out of my life or so help me-"
Harry just nodded quickly, wide-eyed and shocked. He felt like laughing. "Yeah," he said, lips twisting in a grin before he could stop them. "I got what I needed."
Snape shoved him back against the pillows with a low growl and stalked back towards the door.
"You could have just asked," Harry said quietly, and Snape froze, his back to Harry. Harry tried not to smile. Only Snape would try to manipulate forgiveness out of someone. "If you were anyone else."
Snape turned his head slowly, one eye fixing Harry through the curtain of dark hair. All amusement fled as Harry met the flat stare and nodded. "Of course," he breathed. "It's yours." He didn't dare say the word. But no one wanted forgiveness if they didn't care. Especially not Snape. It wasn't much, but it was enough.
There was nothing for a long minute, just silence and strain, and then Snape turned all the way around, that unreadable mask still in place. Harry held his gaze and nodded again. "And-me, too," he said. Another smile threatened to break over his face, but he caught it in time.
Snape stared at him for what seemed like days, and somehow it wasn't as unnerving as it used to be. Finally Snape's eyes closed, and a look of sheer exhaustion settled onto his features. "Madness," he whispered, so quietly Harry barely heard him. Harry waited, not breathing, as Snape stood there. He finally opened his eyes and looked at Harry, eyes on fire. Then he nodded, once, and swept out of the room.
Harry felt the blackness inside him fade, a shadow in the background, and he smiled.
Pairing: HP/SS
Rating: NC-17 overall
Summary: Snape kidnaps rescues kidnaps Harry. Starring AmbiguouslyTrustworthy!Severus and ClinicallyDepressed!Harry.
Notes: God. Okay. I don't even know what to say about this anymore. I have a giant list of people to thank that really starts with minervacat [who, when I said a year ago "OMG MIN I WANT TO WRITE THIS STORY WHAT DO I DO," said "write it" and not "OMG YOU'RE INSANE"] and includes a bunch of RL people who have listened to me and plotted with me and not killed me for this obsession. And a bunch of other people. Anyway. Um. This is it, yo. There is a very good chance there will be a sequel, but it won't happen for quite a while. Please don't pester me about it. I will try to get this up somewhere that's not LJ later tonight. Read the entire fic here. Lyrics to In Between Days are here; the song probably informs the fic more than it should. And I need to stop rambling and hit the damn post button. Gah. Okay. Previous chapters here.
---Hermione looked nervously over her shoulder at the corner where the voice had come from. "Sir, I don't know if Harry wants-"
"Granger, I don't give a damn what he wants. Out."
She looked back at Harry, eyes wide and surprised. Harry was sitting stock-still, something small and terrifying wriggling through his chest. Somehow he nodded at her, and she fled as if her legs couldn't carry her fast enough.
Harry swallowed and squinted towards the voice but couldn't really see anything. He had no idea where his glasses were. And then a shadow unfurled from the corner, and there was Snape. Harry watched, frozen and frightened, as Snape crossed the room, stopped next to the bed, and folded his arms over his chest. He was very much alive, staring down his nose at Harry with no expression whatsoever.
It was like resisting the Imperius, Harry thought, split down the middle and caught somewhere between wanting to throw himself at Snape and wanting to kill him all over again and get it right this time. But his body had its own idea, and the next thing he knew, he was pitching clumsily over the side of the bed. Snape caught him before he hit the floor, and Harry had a brief moment of pure, shattering relief as he was hauled up hard against Snape's familiar form. He smelled like-like-
"For Merlin's sake, Potter," Snape snapped, clearly irritated. He slid one arm under Harry's knees and picked him up, cradling him close to his chest. For one crazy second, Harry thought Snape might hold him like that, and he tried to wrap his arms around Snape's neck but they wouldn't quite cooperate. But Snape set him back in the bed and stepped away; Harry tried not to whimper.
His mouth worked soundlessly for a long time as they stared at one another, and then Snape crossed his arms again and raised a challenging eyebrow, and Harry managed to get the word "how" out of his mouth.
The eyebrow climbed a little higher, and Harry's internal scaled tipped a little towards trying to kill Snape again.
"The gaes?" Harry asked, voice still not quite his own. "But you said it wouldn't work on the-on the-" He couldn't say it. He didn't know how he'd ever said it.
"The Killing Curse," Snape supplied, his voice glacial. "I did. And you, as usual, took my word for it rather than bothering to verify it on your own."
Harry took a deep breath. He felt too fragile to argue with Snape, and he was scared of the thing inside him, coiled tight and quiet but eating his control. "You should be careful what you say to me right now, Snape."
"Perhaps," Snape said. He sat down in the chair recently vacated by Hermione and stretched his long legs out in front of him, the gesture maddeningly casual. "I'm careful what I say to everyone, Potter. All the time." He paused, his sharp gaze roaming over Harry's body, eyes bright in the semi-darkness. "How do you feel?"
Harry really didn't know. He felt like he was on the edge of something dangerous and dark, about to fall in, so full of conflicting emotions he wanted to scream. Or make Snape scream. He couldn't breathe. "I-I can't-I don't know how you can ask me that," he said in a low voice. "I don't know how any of this can be happening."
"I cannot answer questions you don't ask, Potter," Snape said, familiar words in familiar tones, and Harry was falling apart. He didn't know how he was supposed to believe anything Snape said.
"No. You're a fucking liar," he said through his teeth, suddenly chattering. "I can't believe you. And I don't care what you told them, what you did. You're a traitor."
Snape rolled his eyes. "I refuse to have this argument with you, Potter. You heard what Granger said. If you wish to continue believing I betrayed you, so be it." He got up to leave.
"Sit. Down." The lights flickered in the room and everything seemed smaller for a second, darker, and Harry felt his magic churning dangerously through himself, through the room.
Snape sat down.
"You did betray me," Harry said, voice wavering. "You could have-you should have told me."
Snape snorted and ran a hand through his hair. Harry's mind caught on those hands, on what they felt like on his skin, what those long fingers felt like inside him. He bit down on his tongue, hoping the small, sharp pain would help him focus.
"Had I told you the plan," Snape said, as if Harry were four years old, "you never would have been able to summon the force necessary to kill him. It called for hatred, boy, and pure, cold rage. We all would have died."
"I've plenty of hatred, now," Harry snarled.
"I'm aware of that," Snape said softly.
"It was all a game, wasn't it? God," he choked, feeling like he was going to be sick. "The things I did, let you do to me. I thought-and it was just to make it hurt more. Just to make sure I'd be angry enough when you-when he-fuck." Harry was shaking, about to explode with whatever ugliness was inside him, and he was vaguely aware of the lights in the room flickering again.
"Calm yourself, Potter," Snape snapped in his classroom voice, and Harry was so accustomed to obeying it that he tried for a few seconds, breathed around the hole in himself, made the thing inside him stop moving.
"All right," he spat. "What if I'd listened to you? What if I hadn't trusted you, and we'd never-I didn't-"
Snape's jaw clenched and he closed his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose for a while. "No," he said quietly. "You didn't." His voice was so soft Harry had to strain to hear him.
It almost sounded like- "Are you sorry?" Harry asked him. If Snape were sorry, if there was just one sign he actually cared...
Snape dropped his hand and arched an eyebrow. His eyes were clear. "For doing what needed to be done to rid the world of Voldemort? Hardly."
"No matter what it did to me."
"Nor anyone else."
Harry swallowed and looked at his feet. "But you made me a-" He couldn't say it.
Snape, as he should have expected, had no such qualms. "A murderer?" Harry tried not to retch. "Yes. Welcome to the ranks, Mr. Potter. As you're clearly so torn up about it, I'd think you'd be relieved to find me alive." He paused, and Harry could hear the smirk in his next words. "But don't worry. Your secret is safe with me."
Harry clenched his jaw, closed his eyes, and counted to twenty. "What does that mean?"
"It means that I haven't told any of your sycophantic hangers-on that you cast what really should have been an extremely successful Killing Curse. Gaes aside, it knocked me out for several hours. But I don't suppose you did anything sensible such as check for a pulse?"
Harry sighed.
"I thought not. Really, Potter, you could save yourself-"
"Stop," Harry said. Snape shot him a bemused look, but stopped talking. "The spell that killed Voldemort. What was it?"
"I've absolutely no idea."
Harry sagged against the pillows, and Snape sighed. "Talk, Potter. Miss Granger was right. You've been here over a week, and your refusal to speak to anyone is not helping."
"Like you care."
"Not at all. Which is all the more reason not to bother lying."
Harry frowned. That was an odd thing to say. But it wasn't like Snape was going to be disappointed. "There's something inside me," he said. "It's-alive, I think, or wants to be. Something dark. I feel like I'm on fire. Or would, I think, if I weren't drugged out of-if I weren't drugged."
Snape's gaze sharpened and there was a sudden tension in his posture as he stood up, turned up the lights, and leaned over Harry. He ran his hands over Harry's face, down his neck and arms, cool and impersonal. It made Harry want to scream.
Snape sat back down, leaned back in the chair, steepled his fingers, and studied Harry for what seemed a very long time. Finally he said, "Your semi-intelligible groping for appropriate descriptors actually managed to hit upon the proper term. Something dark. Everything dark, in fact."
Harry fisted his hands in the bedsheets. "I don't know what that means."
"Have you any desire to be the next Dark Lord?"
Harry gaped, blinked, and then retched over the side of the bed.
"I shall consider that a no."
"What-how-god." Harry didn't even know what he wanted to ask. He just wanted it to stop. "Make it stop."
Snape's jaw clenched again. "It doesn't stop, Potter. It just-lessens."
Harry's eyes narrowed. "You sound like you know."
"Of course I know," Snape snapped. "I do have some experience with these things."
"You're not covered with it," Harry said. "It's all over me. Every inch. And it-before, it was oozing out of me, like blood."
Snape's eyes sharpened again, and he pursed his lips. "It's a matter of control, Potter. I assume-and really, this is pure conjecture, as I haven't seen it carried to this extent before; we should consult the headmaster-I assume that if you stay away from the Dark Arts and learn to master your rage it will fade with time. But it will never leave you completely."
His rage wanted to punch Snape in the face. "You did this to me," he snarled.
Snape inclined his head. "Yes."
He ground his teeth. "Why? Was it the plan all along? To kidnap me and isolate me and make me-make me-I don't know. Not hate you? So you could turn me into some monster? Is that why you-god."
Snape sighed again and shifted in his chair. The next words came slowly. "You are extremely powerful, Potter, but you're also a rash, reckless, impulsive fool. You are ruled by your emotions. I turned that to our advantage, and I will make no apologies for doing so."
Harry opened his mouth to retort but snapped it shut again as something tugged at a corner of his brain. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to listen to what Snape was telling him. You're a rash, reckless, impulsive fool, Potter-and suddenly Harry knew, with perfect clarity, what had happened that day in the library, when Snape had stopped mid-insult. That's when he'd decided. The strange pause, and he'd just used the same words, and Snape was always careful about his words, and Harry could only assume Snape wanted him to figure this out. Some of the tightness in his chest eased; by then, they'd already started sleeping together. So maybe it hadn't been the plan all along.
Unless. He groaned and dropped his head back on the pillow. "There's a problem with this, Snape," he said.
"With what?"
"I know what you're trying to say," he told Snape, although he was still looking at the ceiling. "Although why you can't just bloody say it is a mystery. But how am I supposed to believe you? How can I know it wasn't really the plan all along, and you got your bright idea just so I'd think you got your bright idea?" He finally did look at Snape, whose eyebrow was arched slightly as he listened. "It was obvious," he said. "You're not obvious. Ever."
Snape snorted. "Unless I need to be. And with you, Potter, it rarely pays to be otherwise."
"And with you it's all about what pays, isn't it?" He dug his fingernails into his thighs to keep from digging them into Snape's face.
Snape lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug. "I am what I am. You knew that all along. Or would, had you listened to a word I said."
"Don't you try to blame this on me," Harry yelled. "Don't say this is MY fault because YOU warned me!"
"It's no one's fault, Potter," Snape said irritably. "But the fact remains, I did warn you."
"So what was the point if you didn't let me listen? Just to make you feel better about the whole thing? I can't even-I feel like I'm talking to an alien."
"Speak with a lot of aliens, do you?"
"Snape. Shut up."
"Are we finished, then? Term begins tomorrow, and I have classes to prepare for."
Harry almost laughed. Snape couldn't just leave and prepare for classes like everything was normal, like nothing had happened and they were just going to go back to their regular lives. "No! I-I'm having you sacked."
Snape's eyes narrowed. "On what grounds?" His voice was soft and dangerous, and Harry clenched his jaw, refusing to be intimidated.
"For-for raping me."
"Ah." Snape's face cleared and he leaned back in the chair, crossing his legs at the knee. "I see."
Harry stared. "That's it? You see? You're not going to-"
"To what? If you're intent on dragging our sex life through the media, Potter, far be it from me to stop you. Tell me, do you intend to share my opinion of your performance?"
Harry growled in frustration. "STOP!" he yelled. "I just-" He broke off with another growl. "There really aren't words for how much I hate you."
"Oh, there are. You've said them. We're beyond that now."
That stopped him short. "What's beyond hate?"
"Indifference," Snape said pleasantly, and stood up.
Harry exhaled sharply. He'd forgotten how much talking to Snape could feel like getting repeatedly gut-punched.
"Shall I call the headmaster and commence with the unpleasantness?"
Harry shook his head frantically, knowing that if Snape walked out that door, it was over. Whatever 'it' was. And it couldn't be over until Harry knew, one way or another. He curled his fists into the sheets and closed his eyes, willing himself to calm down, trying to gather up all the things he knew about Snape into one place so he could ask the right questions.
"Please," he said, eyes still closed. "I just-I need to understand."
A rustle of robes. "What is there to understand? I used you, Potter, and Voldemort is dead, and you're once again a hero, and I'm once again a traitor. Congratulations on a game well played."
Harry tried to ignore the bitterness in Snape's voice. Or, better yet, he just needed to ignore everything remotely personal Snape said. He kept his eyes shut. "Why did-"
"Potter."
Harry took another deep breath and opened his eyes. Snape was back in the chair, legs crossed, watching. "Yeah?"
"Why are you trying so hard?"
Harry felt the anger start to crawl across his skin, but he reined it in. There hadn't been any cruelty in Snape's tone; he was actually asking. "I don't-" Harry bit off the rest of the sentence as Snape's eyes shuttered. "Wait. Let me-try to explain."
Snape sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Don't bother," he said. "It doesn't matter. This is madness."
"It's not," Harry insisted, although he knew Snape was right. It was. "It's not. I just-I thought."
"Doubtful."
"Stop. I need to know if-" He broke off to think about what he needed to say. If he just asked Snape if he cared, Snape would sneer and say no and that would be that. "I'm trying because, because it's been a while. Since there was anyone else." It had been a bit strange to talk to Hermione. He was too used to just Snape.
"I kept you isolated on purpose, Potter," Snape snapped. "For just that reason."
"I know," Harry said. "That wasn't-that's not what I meant."
"Say what you mean to, then. I've not got all day."
But Harry didn't know what he meant. He didn't know how he felt. He didn't like Snape, and he didn't trust Snape, but-"You know me," he said finally, meaning it. Snape knew him better than anyone, now, and understood him. And he was scared of the thing inside him, but there was no way to deal with it on his own. He tried to look at Snape, but couldn't do it, and stared at his feet instead. "I think, with everything-I need that. Need-something." He swallowed. "You."
He glanced up at Snape, who snorted. "You've no idea what you need."
"But you do," Harry said quietly, looking at his feet again. "You always do."
"Yes," Snape snapped. "And I am last on the list. You've said it yourself. I turned you into a monster."
"So fix it."
"I'm not-"
"Nice?" Harry cut in with a harsh laugh. "Believe me, Snape, I know-"
"Interested," Snape snarled, cutting into Harry's sentence and startling him with the sheer vehemence in the word. "I am not interested. In you, in taking care of you, in whatever arrangement you believe you are proposing, in any of it. I am not interested. I did what needed to be done, and now it's over, and I want you out of my life. Believe me, boy, we are very well quit of one another."
Harry's vision went blurry around the edges and he gripped the rails on the bed. He could feel the ugliness building inside him, black under his skin. He bit his tongue until he tasted blood and his vision cleared, and he turned to look at Snape. He was breathing heavily, his hands white-knuckled on the arms of his chair. Not so indifferent, then.
Careful, Harry thought. Careful. "All right," he said, his voice dull and thick and far away. "On one condition."
Snape's hands tightened further, and for a second, Harry thought he was going to argue. But then his lip curled and he spat out, "Name it, then. Whatever you want, Potter. Name your price and I shall pay it. Just let me go."
Harry nodded slowly and swallowed. "What do you want?"
Snape blinked and frowned in quick succession before his face blanked and the eyebrow went up. "I believe you are the one making demands. I've named my request."
"No," Harry said, shaking his head. "All those favors to be named later. It's later. If we're to be quit of each other, I shouldn't owe you. So what do you want?"
Snape stiffened in his chair, his jaw clenching. Harry felt like he was going to throw up, but he kept his eyes on Snape's. He had no idea how long the staring match lasted, but then Snape swore under his breath and shook his head. "No," he said. "No favors. You're absolved. You owe me nothing." He stood. "Have a nice life, Mr. Potter."
Harry tasted glass in his mouth, sharp and overwhelming, and he reached for the thing inside him. It engulfed him and erupted in a single word: "Legilimens."
Snape hit the ground as Harry slammed into his mind, but he was able to throw Harry out almost instantly. But it was too late, too late. Harry knew. And then Snape was at his throat, white and shaking with rage, hands fisted in Harry's hospital gown. "You stay out of my head, Potter," he growled. "You stay out of my head and stay out of my life or so help me-"
Harry just nodded quickly, wide-eyed and shocked. He felt like laughing. "Yeah," he said, lips twisting in a grin before he could stop them. "I got what I needed."
Snape shoved him back against the pillows with a low growl and stalked back towards the door.
"You could have just asked," Harry said quietly, and Snape froze, his back to Harry. Harry tried not to smile. Only Snape would try to manipulate forgiveness out of someone. "If you were anyone else."
Snape turned his head slowly, one eye fixing Harry through the curtain of dark hair. All amusement fled as Harry met the flat stare and nodded. "Of course," he breathed. "It's yours." He didn't dare say the word. But no one wanted forgiveness if they didn't care. Especially not Snape. It wasn't much, but it was enough.
There was nothing for a long minute, just silence and strain, and then Snape turned all the way around, that unreadable mask still in place. Harry held his gaze and nodded again. "And-me, too," he said. Another smile threatened to break over his face, but he caught it in time.
Snape stared at him for what seemed like days, and somehow it wasn't as unnerving as it used to be. Finally Snape's eyes closed, and a look of sheer exhaustion settled onto his features. "Madness," he whispered, so quietly Harry barely heard him. Harry waited, not breathing, as Snape stood there. He finally opened his eyes and looked at Harry, eyes on fire. Then he nodded, once, and swept out of the room.
Harry felt the blackness inside him fade, a shadow in the background, and he smiled.