First Time for Everything Fest: FIC: This Time Around Title: This Time Around Author:shuichi_ai Rating: PG Word count: ~4,294 words Content/Warning(s): (highlight for spoilers) *AU/AR, Reincarnation* Summary: AU/AR: It takes the Fates multiple times to get soulmates together.
This Time Around
The first time they were on the Earth together one of them was magical and the other was not. Merlin, the advisor to his beloved King Arthur, was doomed to a one-sided love from afar. Longingly he watched him, providing advice and knowledge to his King. His love unrequited, Merlin met his downfall when he attempted to forget his passions for his beloved with the lovely Nymue. It was his first lesson of betrayal.
The second time they met, they were both magical, and they became great friends. Together, though their ideals were rather different, they built a school that would last through the ages. Their legacy and that of their friends Helga and Rowena. For a time, they were happy together, though quite in secret. It was inevitable, though, that Gryffindors should be so infuriating and inclusive. Godric refused to listen to reason, he refused to listen to his lover, he refused to love him enough. It was his first lesson in crushing disappointment.
The third time, so often touted for being a charm, was anything but. The fates tried again, thinking that the circumstances were right, a couple of things just needed to be tweaked. An age difference, to teach one patience, perhaps. They became bitter enemies from the start, before the other could even make his journey from the melting pot of souls back to the Earth. The ending was bitter and ugly, the love unrealized until it was far too late. His destiny fulfilled, Harry Potter followed Severus Snape soon after the end. It was his soul’s first lesson in unrequited love.
~*~ The Fates stood around discussing what to do this time in order to have them meet their true destinies. “Magic suits them,” one argued quite vehemently. “I say we try it again.”
“Absolutely not! We’ve tried that twice already, three times if you count their beginning. and it’s been disastrous every time!”
“They need to be closer in age again,” one said, immediately shot down. “No. His temper is too hot, he needs his age to calm him down.”
“His age is what embitters him,” came another reply.
“That is why the younger one is good for him, too. I think this recipe is much better. We’ll send them down as with the previous circumstances, but remove the magic. There’s no more pressing destiny this time aside from each other. They’ll make it this time.”
“That’s what you said last time,” one of them snarled.
“If I might make a suggestion,” came a voice from behind the arguing Fates. They went silent and, as one, turned to look at the intruder. It was just a glowing soul, but if it had a body to inhabit, it would no doubt have eyes that twinkled rather avidly, a small amused smile tugging at the mouth.
“Who let you in here? You’re not supposed to be here!” one of the Voices cried.
“Forgive me, Madam,” the soul said softly. “But I’m quite familiar with these two souls. I beg your pardon, but it seems to me the problem is lack of memory.”
“Souls aren’t supposed to remember, it hinders progress,” came a snide reply.
The ancient soul seemed to twinkle, as if it were nodding. “Very well,” he said. “But if you put them down sooner this time, perhaps they’ll be more likely to have a vague recall. They’ll recognize each other, in a sense, don’t you think?”
There was silence for a moment. “We’ll take it under advisement,” one of them said, voice clipped with irritation. “Now be gone or we’ll not send you back again at all.” Before Dumbledore’s soul could give a polite response he was expelled from the room.
“He had a point, you know,” one of the Voices said, sounding rather cranky about it.
“Mm.” A wordless agreement.
“Sooner, then,” another said. “And with circumstances the same.”
And so it was that our two boys were sent back in a much more timely manner, the snarky one first to give him experience in controlling that temper that had seemed ever-present since the second time down, the brave one almost twenty years later.
~*~ Uni was just about one of the hardest things Harold Porter had ever done. In his second year now, he thought he’d be more used to the workload, but somehow it had increased tenfold. Ah, who was he kidding? He knew the exact reason the workload had increased, it was his chemistry professor, Snipes. Never a more apt name had someone had. The professor was perhaps the snippiest, surliest man that Harry had ever met and it was really unfortunate that they’d got off on the wrong foot to start.
Harry had been standing outside the hall after one of the classes with some of the other blokes. “No wonder people call him Snipey,” he said. “And his first name is weird, too, did you see it? Severus? More like Severe. Severely Snipey.” They all laughed a little, but as soon as they had started most of the boys had stopped immediately. Harry closed his eyes.
“Poking fun at the professor’s name, Porter?” the man nearly cooed. “How juvenile. This is university, not a playground where the biggest bully gets to do what he wants. Perhaps if you had been better prepared for class I would not have needed to call attention to your appalling lack of critical thinking skills.”
Harry had tried to defend himself, but he’d simply been cut off with a terse “good day” and the man had left. Harry had stared after him with a red face and sinking feeling in his gut, an odd sensation that there should have been some sort of cloak trailing behind the man as he left. The boys had laughed and razzed him, but Harry just brushed it off with a sense of embarrassment and made his excuses to leave.
When he’d gone to the professor’s office to apologize the man had scarcely heard a word, telling him to get out nearly as soon as he’d stepped in. “Sir,” Harry said. “Professor, please, I just wanted to apologize.”
“I’m not interested in your excuses, Porter,” the man snarled. “Now. Get. Out.”
Harry got out.
He took to his assignments with a renewed vigor after that. He was eager to show that he wasn’t just some useless, brainless bully. It was a little disheartening that each assignment he got back was never quite that A that he thought he deserved, but he kept trying. Through the hols he got a tutor to help him out so that the next semester he would prove that he could pay attention, that he was more than what he seemed.
~*~ The chance he got to prove himself, however, came from outside the classroom. The weather was atrocious, the rain a torrential downpour. As he walked down the street toward the shop he intended to go to he saw his professor standing at a bus stop, a scowl on his face. Harry felt his heart skip a beat despite himself. The man might be eternally cranky, but there was something elegant about him. Perhaps it was the length at which he kept his dark hair, or perhaps it was the dark, fathomless eyes. It could also have been the way the rain was running down his hair, over his eyelashes. The paper he’d been using to ward off the wet had long since gone to ruin.
“Hello, Professor,” Harry greeted from under his umbrella, giving him a small smile. He got a soft glare in return for his greeting. Well...that was okay. Harry was nothing if not persistent. “Would you like to share my umbrella?”
The last thing Severus wanted to do was share an umbrella with Harold Porter--something about the young man was entirely too disturbing. His eyes were too green, too piercing. He was too young and arrogant; he didn’t want to owe him anything, least of all thanks. Still, it was rather wet and he was irritated that he’d forgotten his own umbrella. He gave a curt nod in response. Porter beamed and it did a stupid thing to his stomach.
They stood there under the same umbrella, the rain pattering rather loudly against it, in the most awkward silence either of them had ever experienced. It was nearly two solid minutes of trying to think over the sound of the rain before Harry finally spoke. “So where are you headed, Professor?”
Dark eyes cut sideways to find the boy staring up at him. “...I’ve some holiday shopping to do,” he said after some thought.
“Oh man, me too! I haven’t even started yet!”
“Consider me surprised,” Severus said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. He told himself the flush that lit the boy’s cheeks was certainly not delightful.
“Heh. Yeah, I guess you’ve probably nearly finished with yours,” Harry said, turning his gaze away and trying not to feel like an idiot.
“Nearly.”
They lapsed into silence once more and the longer they stood there, the more awkward Harry started to feel. There was a lingering sense of familiarity that he couldn’t seem to define and it was crawling around under his skin as though it would burst out at any moment. He was attracted to his professor, and it was nearly heartbreaking because the man didn’t seem to like him at all. Not that he could blame him, really, but a little recognition that he’d redeemed himself would have been nice. Perhaps that was it; perhaps he hadn’t redeemed himself.
“I’ll be taking your second level chemistry class next semester,” Harry said, trying not to sound as awkward as he felt.
“Do try and be better prepared for it this time.”
“Heh...right. I will,” he promised.
“We shall see.”
The bus rolled to a stop in front of them and Severus stepped forward, leaving the protection of the umbrella. He looked over his shoulder with a frown. “Aren’t you coming?” he asked, perplexed.
“I...uh...I just remembered I had something...else. To do. Elsewhere. It was good to see you, Professor. Take care.”
Severus stared at him for a moment, then gave a small nod. “Thank you,” he said, the words a slightly bitter pill to swallow. It wasn’t until the bus had pulled away after he’d sat down that it occurred to him Porter had stopped simply to provide him protection against the rain. An absurd notion, really, but one that settled in the pit of his stomach and spread with uncomfortable warmth.
~*~ The next time they met outside of school it was just after the new year. The ground was covered in snow and ice and the sun was trying to shine, doing its best to melt it away and blind people that decided to brave the elements. They had practically bumped into each other on the street, Harry coming around a corner right as Severus came the opposite direction.
“Professor!”
“Porter…” Severus greeted him, surprise flickering over his expression.
“Sorry! I didn’t see you.” Harry rubbed a hand through his hair sheepishly when he received a raised eyebrow that said ‘obviously’. The expression struck a chord in him and his stomach flipped.
“And where are you off to in such a hurry today?” Severus said, going against every bone in his body and striking up conversation.
“Oh! Nowhere… I mean I was headed somewhere, but it’s not really important. I was going to meet a friend but I woke up later than I meant to.”
“Ah. I shan’t keep you, then. Good day.” Severus made to continue in the direction he’d come from, but he was stopped when Porter called out to him.
“Professor, wait! Um...would you...I mean, do you want…” He shook his head. “Can I buy you a coffee?”
“Isn’t your friend expecting you?”
“Um...well, not really. He already left.”
“I see,” he said in a tone that meant he didn’t quite see at all. What was Porter’s game?
“It’s all right, forget I asked, you’re probably busy. I’m sorry. It was nice seeing you, Professor.” Full of embarrassment, Harry took his turn to leave. He made it ten steps.
“Mr. Porter,” Severus called, turning and following after the young man despite his instincts telling him to run the other way. “I could go for some tea,” he said. Harry beamed at him in response.
Inside the tea shop they removed their coats and scarves and gave their order, then promptly began trying not to stare awkwardly across the table. The silence was strained and Harry wasn’t sure how to fill it. He wasn’t sure what had made his professor accept in the first place. “I took a tutor,” he blurted, earning himself another one of those raised eyebrows that made his stomach quiver.
“Indeed. Well...your grades did improve last semester, however marginally.” Severus took a perverse delight in the young man’s embarrassment. They were silent again until their cups arrived.
“So why’d you become a professor, er...Professor?”
“While we are not in class you may call me Severus, Porter. Not Severe, not Sev, nor anything else you think you’d like to call me.” He gave him a glare that Harry was relatively sure was slightly mocking.
Harry gave an embarrassed smile. “Harry,” he said in turn. “Please.”
“As you wish. The reason I am a professor is because it allows me to research at the same time it allows me to pass on knowledge to the dimmer generations of dunderheads.”
Harry snorted a laugh, staring across the table at his professor. “Do you ever get the feeling that...you’ve known someone all your life, even though there’s no way you could?” he asked suddenly, a dreamy distance to his eyes.
Severus felt his stomach give a roll as it sometimes did in lifts. He was feeling that more and more, especially sitting here, but he wasn’t about to admit to that--especially since he had no idea where Porter...Harry was going with the question. He had no desire to be mocked. “I’m not certain I have, no.” He pretended not to notice the brief look of disappointment that flashed across the boy’s face. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh...no reason,” Harry said, looking away to hide a flush. “Sometimes I just get a kind of...deja vu. I think it’s just the way you say things. Guess I must have known someone when I was small that talked like you.” He couldn’t imagine anyone in his godforsaken family that would talk like Severus, but he supposed it could have been someone else. A different teacher perhaps.
“There are many theories on the experience of deja vu,” Severus told him. “Some scientists believe it is a sign of mental disorders.” He looked at Harry rather pointedly for several moments before the boy seemed to get that he was being made fun of.
“Hey!”
Severus’ lips twitched. “Other theories indicate it may be based on the interaction of some medications; still others say that it has something to do with incomplete memory recall.”
“What do you mean?” Harry asked, leaning forward eagerly. It was far more attentive than he’d seen the boy in class, even after Severus had called him out on his lack of willingness to study. Perhaps it was the subject.
“Well, take for example, this shop. Thirty years from now, when you’ve forgotten all about your nasty chemistry teacher, you’ll enter a shop similar to this one--the layout reminiscent, perhaps, or the smells the same, you may have someone else with you at the time and, unable to recall our current circumstances, you’ll have a vague recollection and see it as having happened before. Deja vu.”
Harry was leaning on one elbow, chin in his hands, eyes a little glassy as he listened. “I doubt I could ever forget you, Professor...er, Severus.”
Severus felt his insides try to turn themselves around and he very pointedly looked down into his teacup. He didn’t know what to say to that, and he was suddenly very aware of why his student had wanted to invite him to tea. It wasn’t unheard of, really, students would develop their crushes. It was, however, quite unethical. Before he could formulate a proper response Harry asked, “So is that all there is for theories on deja vu, then?”
He cleared his throat and shifted a little in his chair, looking over at Harry. “Some think it is related to reincarnation, but I don’t put much stock in that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it is a sort of theological debate, and I don’t waste time with theology. I am a man of science.” Harry smiled, and Severus again had to force himself not to notice.
“But isn’t science all about possibilities? You don’t think it could even be possible?”
Severus considered the young man across from him carefully. “I suppose it could be a possibility,” he agreed finally. “But again, not one in which I am confident at all. The problem with debates like those, Porter...Harry, is that they offer no proof. If there is no way to prove something, then it should not be part of the equation.”
“I don’t know,” Harry said. “I kind of like the idea. We could have known each other in a past life, Professor. We could have been anyone! Maybe I was your teacher.” Harry was absolutely delighted when Severus actually gave a small, if derisive, laugh.
“I very highly doubt there could be any sort of situation in which you would have been my teacher, past life or otherwise.”
Harry tilted his head. “I think we learn from everyone we meet, even if it’s a small thing.” Silence.
“A very profound statement, Mr. Porter.” He finished his tea and set it back down. “I should get going.” He had to run before these ridiculous emotions betrayed him and made him do something he’d regret. When he stood, Porter stood with him and slipped a note on the table for the waitress. They walked out together, stopping just outside the door to say their goodbyes.
“Can I see you again?” Harry blurted, his nervousness all over his face. Severus tried to think of a way to let him down without destroying his fragile little ego.
“I think not,” he said, deliberately not noticing the look of disappointment yet again. “Thank you for the tea. I shall see you in class, Mr. Porter.”
Harry watched him walk away, wondering what he’d done wrong.
~*~ Classes that semester were almost torture. They spoke often, but Severus always did his best to keep it strictly on school matters. Harry’s attentions were obvious to him now--the boy was anything but subtle--but he was very careful not to be alone with him. The worst part was that he was starting to find the boy charming. And even more than that, the continued sense of knowing him didn’t seem to want to go away.
When summer finally came, Severus quite deliberately was not in his office when Harry came to visit. He came several times the first couple of weeks before he finally seemed to move on. Severus told himself it was better that way.
~*~ School was about to start up again when next they met. It was a late summer rain, and the downpour had been sudden and angry. Severus saw him standing at a bus stop, much as he himself had been that first time they spoke outside the classroom not quite a year ago. The rain had flattened his scraggly black hair down around his face and Severus thought him rather beautiful. Before he could stop himself he was at the stop with him. “Care to share my umbrella, Mr. Porter?” Severus did not feel butterflies when startled green eyes looked up at him. Green eyes that had haunted him all summer with that persistent feeling of having haunted him all of eternity.
“Professor! Hi! Um...yeah, that’d be great.” He smiled, his eyes taking in all of Severus’ face hungrily. Severus stepped up and offered him shelter from the rain. The silence was awkward again. “How have you been, Professor?”
“I have been well,” he said. “I didn’t see your name on my roster for the third-level class.”
Harry looked away. “No, I...decided not to take it. My studies don’t require it anyway. I tried to tell you when summer started, but you weren’t ever in your office.” He looked up at Severus for confirmation of his suspicions that he was being avoided on purpose, but he only received a nod and they lapsed into silence again. “Heh,” Harry laughed, hoping his awkwardness didn’t show. “This is like the first time we talked,” he pointed out.
“It had not escaped my notice,” Severus agreed. “It’s like that old song.”
“Hm?” Harry looked up at him again and their eyes connected, sending a whirl of butterflies through him. “What old song?”
“The one about the umbrella.”
Harry blinked at him. “Oh! They did a remake of that a few years ago, yeah? Some American song?”
Severus’ lip curled up in disdain. “Absolutely not,” he said. “That song is atrocious!” He tried not to be too delighted at Harry’s sudden laugh.
“Well what song, then? Sing it.”
“I think not,” he sniffed in disdain. “It’s about an umbrella and a bus stop.”
“You’re making that up,” Harry laughed.
“I’m doing no such thing!” Severus bristled, offended. “It’s a song by a band that was popular here in the 1960s or...perhaps it was the 1970s, I can’t recall. My parents enjoyed listening to old music when I was a boy.”
“1960s?! That’s not old, that’s ancient!” More laughter. It warmed Severus and he smiled a little.
“It is a bit, yes.”
Harry’s laughter cut off abruptly and he looked up at his former professor, his adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed nervously. Should he try to ask him out again? Perhaps he hadn’t been direct enough last time? He’d thought he was being rejected, but it was likely that he just wasn’t clear enough. “I’m not your student anymore,” he said needlessly.
“Correct.”
“Which means you’re not my professor.”
“Correct again.” He raised a brow, that smile trying to tug at the corners of his mouth again.
“Which means...I can ask you to see me again,” Harry continued, voice coming out a little shaky.
“You can, yes. Ten points for an accurate assessment, Mr. Porter.” Harry’s blush really was delightful.
“Will you? See me again? I know I was such a prat at the beginning of last year, and I know I’m not as smart as you, and I’m younger, but I’m really very interested in you, Severus, and--” His rambling was cut off as Severus pushed a finger to his mouth to silence him.
“Your incessant rambling is unnecessary, Porter.” And then he was leaning down, and lips were pressed together, and all of the butterflies in all of the world were storming through Harry and battering at him to get out. He’d been waiting for an eternity for this moment, he thought. He returned the kiss, chaste and yet still intense, his arms going up and around the taller, older man.
When Severus pulled away he was looking down at Harry almost as if in wonder. “I will see you again,” he confirmed, just in case the kiss was too subtle for the infuriating, delightful boy. Harry beamed up at him, about to say something when they heard an unfamiliar sound. They both turned to find a young boy, about four, with curly auburn hair and twinkling blue eyes staring at them with a rather large smile.
“Er….hello. Are you lost?” Harry asked. The boy said nothing, merely…twinkled at them in silence. Harry pulled away from Severus a little, squeezing his arm and a terrible feeling of familiarity seemed to almost overwhelm him. Before he could remark on it a woman came bustling forward, her clothing a bit off somehow...it didn’t seem to match very well.
“Sorry,” she called to them, seeming quite frazzled. She picked the boy up and rushed away from them without even a glance. “Albert how many times have I told you to be careful around Muggles,” they heard her saying as she rushed off.
They both stared after her. “Did you just…?” Harry started.
“I did not.”
“Yes you did, you knew what I was going to say!” Deja vu.
“Impossible,” Severus said, denying the feeling and the circumstances, which he knew Harry would insist on blaming for it. Reincarnation, indeed.
“What’s a Muggle?” Harry asked.
“Perhaps it’s a new word for homosexuals.”
“Mm. Or a new word for strangers.”
“Unlikely.”
They finally both looked at each other, wonder in their eyes. Harry smiled first, and leaned up to continue the kiss that had been interrupted.
~*~ The fourth time they were on Earth, neither of them was magical. They had no wands to transfigure matches into needles; they had no spells for setting suits of armor to sing; they had no brooms with which to fly. They had no responsibilities to the world. Their circumstances were mostly the same, but their destinies were simply to find each other.
They had no magic in the sense of their previous lives, but in this their final life, they discovered a magic far beyond that which a wand can perpetuate. In this life, they discovered the magic only deep, ardent love can inspire.
In this life, they finally found their happily ever after.
And somewhere in the space between life and afterlife, the Fates cracked open a bottle of champagne and made a toast.