Entry tags:

creation: fic, irisgirl12000, rated: r

Happy Daft Day, the_minx_17!
Recipient: the_minx_17
Title: Look. At. Me.
Author: irisgirl12000
Rating: R
Warnings: angst, character death, dubious consent, chan (Harry is 15)
Prompt/Summary: What was Snape trying to see in the moment before his death?
Author's Note: Non-linear. Canon-compliant. A “missing moments” fic that focuses on Harry’s Occlumency lessons. Many thanks to my betas for their willingness to correct my procrastination-prone self at the very last possible moment.

*


Snape leans over the stone basin and watches its contents swirl, their silver not-quite-liquidity moving smoothly. One long finger dips in occasionally, delicately touching a drift of memory. Sometimes he pushes it away, back into the whirlpool; other memories he prods with his wand, extracting them and returning them to their rightful place. Every once in a while, he shudders in remembered, re-experienced grief or pleasure.

*

Cho Chang was drawing nearer to Harry under the mistletoe....

A stripe of pain on his wrist forced Snape to lower his wand.

Potter was so pathetically easy. Dumbledore was right to fear this weakness, wrong to put so much trust in the boy, otherwise.

*

Voldemort rants about the Elder Wand, about the battle, about Potter. Snape is uneasy, the way he is only when a Potter is nearby. The brat can't be far; the tunnel is blocked from this end and the fighting rages outside, but Snape knows Potter and his cohorts will have found a way around that impediment.

Fine. This is not where Snape would choose to have this confrontation, but once the Dark Lord is pacified, he must speak to Potter, make him see what must be done.

*

Potter eyed the dragons with mistrust, but was distracted by the gentle motion of a callused hand against bronze scales, by the flash of torchlight against a glinting smile and bright red hair. A flush of confusion and arousal consumed him, and he turned away to sneak back to the castle.

*

Severus clutched the book in his hand, forgotten in his shock. He'd known, known this would happen when Lily pushed him out of her life. Without him there to remind her, Potter had insinuated himself in the empty space at her side.

He watched Potter's hand drift down her back, settle on her hip. He waited for her to object, but Lily didn't. She leant into Potter, and the hand slid lower, to the curve of her arse, and squeezed. A muffled moan and panted, "Lily," galvanized Severus.

He backed away, out of the stacks, and dropped the book on the nearest table.

He barely made it to the boys' lavatory in time to rip open his robes and trousers and fist himself roughly. He came with idea of long, red hair against his cheek and whispered groans against his neck.

*

"Stand aside, you silly girl... stand aside, now...."

"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead."

Laughter, a scream, then silence.

Snape collapsed into his chair the moment Potter was gone. When his hands stopped shaking, he fumbled to open the bottom drawer, where he kept a bottle of firewhiskey. He forewent the glass and took a gulp straight from the bottle.

It had been years since he allowed himself to think about Lily's death. Not that she was dead -- he was reminded of that every time he looked up and saw Harry Potter's green eyes glaring at him from his Potions desk -- but the actual circumstances of her death. He hadn't thought that the Dark Lord would truly spare her. Somehow his guilt felt heavier, infinitely bleaker, his devotion to her immeasurably less worthy, knowing that she would not have traded Harry's life for her own.

*

"Take... it...." Is that rasp his voice?

Snape knows he is dying. Even if his throat hadn't been torn beyond repair, Nagini's venom would have been enough to insure his death. But his job is unfinished.

Potter is here, leaning over him, and Snape closes his hands over his robes and pulls insistently, forcing him to look, to take the memories of Dumbledore's words.

"Take... it...."

*

Harry's attention was on a worktable, but not his own. His gaze was focused on dark, slim fingers deftly handling a silver knife. It flashed as Zabini scraped diced dandelion stems into a pile and dumped them into a cauldron, and Harry shook his head.

He mustn't thinking about what those fingers would look like, how they'd feel on his skin. He had a potion to brew.

*

The bed curtains muffled the sound of Neville's snoring and Ron's sleep-talking. When the usual going-to-bed sounds quieted, Harry wriggled until his pajama bottoms were down on his thighs, and takes his cock in hand.

His mind was a blur, a collage of Fred and George in the Quidditch changing room, of Blaise Zabini's drawled words and quick fingers, of Snape's voice whispering in his ear silkily, for once not angry. Cho Chang's smile and long, black hair beckoned, then morphed into Bill Weasley's grin, a nonchalantly flicked-back lock of hair and a casual hug.

Harry came from the sense memory of body heat and cologne filling his nostrils.

*

Stupefy!

Potter was dazed, leaning against the wall. Snape caught the edge of his desk and righted himself. He opened his mouth to insult Potter's weakness (again) when he realized that Potter was disoriented and not yet aware of his surroundings: his hand had slid down, over his robes and down to his crotch, where even heavy black cotton couldn't hide what reliving his memories had done. The heel of his hand pressed and released, then moved to unfasten buttons and slide down the zipper.

Snape watched, slightly incredulous and more than a little aroused, as Potter lifted his cock out of the fabric and stroked lightly.

He shouldn't be surprised. He knew, knew what reliving memories could do. He'd never been as embarrassed as he was after the first few Occlumency lessons with Dumbledore. Of course, Dumbledore had been looking for memories of the Dark Lord in his probing, and Snape had been forced to recall his first, wretched days with Rosier and Yaxley, but still. Snape hadn't expected the sexual nature of the memories he'd received when he went looking for things Potter wanted to hide.

And now Potter was wanking in Snape's office.

Severus Snape practiced many things, but neither stupidity nor self-denial were among them. Especially given the memories he'd just seen.

"Potter." He made his voice a purr, and was rewarded with a soft grunt. Potter's head fell backward against the wall, his eyes closed and his throat exposed, as if he were somewhere safe, somewhere that such a vulnerable spot could be bared without consequence. Snape took it as an invitation, moving across the room and invading Potter's space, pressing him more firmly to the wall and applying his lips and teeth to the pale, soft skin.

There was a blur of twisted material and awkward limbs, and then Potter's hips were cradled against his, his cock already leaking pre-come against Snape's robes with each push-pull of Snape's body against his. One hand, too large for the wrist it was attached to, callused from handling a broomstick, slick with sweat, curled into Snape's robes, while the other crept up to tug at the buttons over Snape's groin. Snape lifted, shifted Potter's weight, and then his legs were around Snape's hips and -- Potter groaned in triumph -- his hand was inside Snape's robes, curving around his cock, stroking awkwardly, trying to match the rhythm Snape established.

Potter didn't take long. Snape felt a surge of satisfaction when he felt the cock against his jerk, felt Potter come on his belly and his fingers, and knew that this was the first time the brat had come from anyone's hand but his own. That was enough to have him groaning out his own pleasure, muffling it against Potter's throat.

He remained there, holding Potter pressed to the wall, longer than was wise, perhaps. He watched as green eyes opened, cloudy and dazed with pleasure. He watched, watched, saw when they began to clear.

Snape could see the awareness return. Part of him wanted something to taunt the brat with, but another part of him was unwilling to see horror mar the clear, emerald depths.

He reached for his wand, and whispered, "Obliviate."


*

When it is finished, done, he is exhausted. Physically, magically, emotionally. It takes concentration to return memories to their rightful place, and many of the things he has just reviewed were put in the Pensieve for a reason: for months, years, Snape has considered the emotions they engender a waste.

It's a necessary precaution, he tells himself. Dumbledore, for all his faults, trusted Snape. Once their lessons had concluded, he'd never invaded Snape's mind, and his thoughts and memories had remained inviolate. The Dark Lord knows no such courtesy. If he finds these images in his head, Snape's status as most trusted Death Eater will be nothing. Less than nothing.

"Evanesco."

*

"Look... at... me."

Snape doesn't know why, but he needs to have those eyes look at him, to see him as he is, finally. Without shadows or lies. He tells himself it's not Potter he's looking for but Lily.

There's a part of his mind that doesn't quite believe it, but then green eyes are staring into his, and it doesn't matter any longer.