Title: Familiar Paths
Author: reddwarfer
Characters: Severus Snape, Harry Potter
Rating: R
Warnings: Sort of spoilery for DH
Themes/kinks chosen: Bloodplay
Word Count: 1,130
Summary: It's the millionth time that Harry finds himself in the midst of battle..
Author's notes: Thanks a million to qtheallpowerful for the beta. It's been ages since I wrote more than a drabble, and I eschew dipping my feet and go for a dive instead.



It's the millionth time that Harry finds himself in the midst of battle, hexes flying and curses thrown all around. It's as if his ears are blocked, the voices coming from behind cloud and cloth, and he can't hear it properly. He walks down the familiar path to the Shrieking Shack, needing to find something; what, he can't quite recall.

The hallways elongate, twisting and curving into a maze. He doesn't know how much further he has to go, but he knows that what he wants is out of reach. In the dim light, he can see a black mass on the floor, thinks finally, and moves closer.

It's Snape, dead on the floor, eyes wide and blank, and he feels the finally become too late…again. Harry wakes, tangled in his sweat-dampened sheets, and flings himself to the bathroom, sicks up till he can hardly breathe…again.

The next night, Harry drinks coffee until dawn, forces himself, red-eyed and exhausted, to work. When he stumbles back in the door after dinner, he goes straight to bed, bypassing the uncorked vial of dreamless-sleep yet again.

The walk to the Shack is different this time. The hexes still fly, and the sounds muted, but the path is now clear. He walks—then runs—to Snape's side, dropping to his knees as soon as he sees him.

Snape's chest rises and falls so minutely that it takes Harry a few minutes to even notice. The blood pours from his neck, pooling in a sticky black pool under his head, neck. Harry gropes in the pockets of his robes for his wand, but finds nothing but a dull knut and a red string.

Suddenly, Snape's hand shoots up, grasping his arm, pulling him closer. "Look at me," he whispers, and Harry stares into his eyes, watching the light flicker in and out. The blood still flows from the neck wound, and Harry finds his eye drawn to the steady drip.

He covers it with his hand, feeling the wet warmth pulse through his fingers. Harry wants to say something to Snape, anything that will mean something, that will change something, but his mouth remains clamped shut, and his throat clenches from disuse.

Instead, he leans forward, his body moving faster than his own thoughts, and he licks the side of Snape's neck, the metallic tang coating his tongue. He presses his body against Snape's, feeling the quiet, steady thrum of Snape's heart against his chest, and sucks at the wound, face wet and tinging with either the excitement or venom, he's not sure which.

It is then that Snape reacts, a soft, breathy moan, a subtle shift of body, and a quiet, "Look at me."

Harry turns to face him, tongue darting out to lick at his lips, half-surprised to taste the blood on them. It's even more surprising to taste Snape on them, who surges up from beneath him, capturing his lips in a biting kiss, fierce and deep, contradicting the picture of near-death he portrays.

Harry looks into his eyes as they kiss, not wanting to miss the way Snape looks back at him, like he isn't useless, like he means something. He didn't know how much he's been craving it until the mere whet of his appetite undoes him.

Pulling away, Harry gives a half-smile, murmuring under his breath. "Let me heal you. I have…I want…I just need to."

He fingers the wound, magic and blood swirling around his fingertips. He can feel it close, and he smiles. Turning back to Snape, Harry feels a thrill in the pit of his stomach to see smirk curl on Snape's lips.

"Took you long enough, Potter," Snape mumbles, but the bite is absent. It makes Harry want to kiss him again, just to know that he wouldn't be turned away. So he does, and he presses closer to Snape, wanting to feel the movement against him, needing to feel it.

There are fingers pulling at his clothes, pushing them away as he peels away the cloth sticking to Snape's flesh from the now-drying blood. His skin almost glows in the dim room, and Harry is transfixed.

He tastes the small patches of brownish-red along the side of his neck and shoulder, almost cleansing the taint from Snape's body. He wants Snape clean, wants him whole. "Harry," Snape all but whispers, and he's awash in a heady rush.

"I want…"Harry starts again, running his hand down Snape's body, sweeping briefly past the wiry patch of hair, to curl around the length of Snape's cock. It throbs under his hand, almost like the blood from Snape's neck, and he strokes in almost reverently in turn.

Snape makes no move to further touch him or pull away, instead remaining pliant under Harry's body and hands. He simply looks, watches Harry's face, his lips, and Harry feels himself burn beneath the gaze, never faltering in his pace. He talks, then, soft spoken words meaning nothing except that Harry wants Snape to know that it is him doing this, and not anyone else. He wants to be more than a pair of hauntingly familiar eyes.

That he wants to be wanted by this man seems foolish to him, even as he watches Snape twitch and writhe under his ministrations. It seems reckless to want love from someone who spent his life reminding him how worthless, how hated he was. But he can't stop what he wants anymore than he can stop the way Snape's body is reacting to him.

Snape comes, and he stares, watching the slight shudder, and slack face as he closes his eyes for the first time since he found him there. It's then that he registers the way Snape's hand rubs against his partially clothed erection. When Snape finally pushes away his underwear, grasps his cock, he comes shamelessly, with barely a tug.

It doesn't matter, though, because Snape is alive, he's alive, and it's him that Snape's seeing, he's sure.
"Look at me," Snape says, a little louder this time, his voice piercing through the cotton like fog surrounding his head, and Harrry obeys.

When he does, he regrets it immediately. The light in Snape's eyes is gone, and the wound open. The blood is back, and he can hear the cold, cruel cackle of Voldemort in the distance. He closes his eyes, not wanting to see anymore, and opens them to find the four darkened walls of his room.

The toilet is just as cool against his skin as the time before, and he washes his mouth in the sink without daring to look in the mirror. He eyes the vial of dreamless sleep on the counter, sweeps it with a brush of his hand into the trash, and goes back to bed.