spfestmod (spfestmod) wrote in snape_potter, @ 2017-12-20 11:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | fic, rating: pg-13, secret snarry swap17 |
Secret Snarry Swap: FIC: Moving On
Title: Moving On
Author: hanhanoria
Other pairings/threesome: Past Severus/Albus, unrequited Harry/Albus
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4100
Content/Warning(s): None
Prompter/Prompt: Prompt 17 from themightyflynn: Harry starts receiving anonymous letters after the end of the war. They start off as almost confessions, but they become much more as it goes on.
Summary: HP/SS move on from a mutually lost love after the war.
A/N: Happy Holidays and thank you to whoever left this wonderful prompt! I’ll bet anything it wasn’t the direction you were expecting, wasn’t what I was really expecting either… funny thing, that, but I’m pretty happy with it. I would have loved for it to be longer. If I have time, I’ll expand it out. Enjoy!
Read on AO3
Now is the winter of our discontent. Made glorious summer by... the prodigal son.
I never imagined the ways in which you would change our lives. There were years in which we were happy. It was unexpected for us both. Albus, I think, had planned on living his life alone. He had you to worry about and I rather suspect you know by now how fabulously his last relationship failed.
My first day here as a professor was nearly as miserable as my first day here as a student. I was 21, just a few years older than the oldest students –most of whom I knew from my years here. Albus insisted on meeting.
The students walked all over me. I was too quiet, too afraid of speaking, and they had no inclination to listen to me. It was the first time Albus cared about my low self-esteem. That day was another terrible blow against any idea that I was worth anything.
He pulled me into his arms. For a moment, I wanted to cry. No man had ever held me –not my father, nor anyone else. All he did was hold me. I peered up into his eyes, his soft gentle eyes.
That night, I gave Albus the only innocence I had left.
We must both carry on without him, Potter. Every argument I had with him that inevitably ended with me jealous of the love he had for you; every time you blasted your core at one of us, with vastly different intentions; every instance of pride and disappointment will be burned into my memory forever.
I know you loved him. I could feel it, every time you burst your core. Sometimes you did it to me out of frustration and primal desire, but you did it to him for the same reason I was with him. You wanted his warm, protective arms around you. You wanted to hear that you were loved, his boy. He would want you to know that you were adored, his boy, the one he wanted to have the world. His love was yours, not mine, and I know it.
The second time, I thought he was punishing me. It was Yule, 1981. Your parents had been dead for months and the world finally seemed to be at peace. We had met on a weekly basis up until that point. I don’t know why I decided I needed to bare my soul to him. He knew of my past, the pain and the horrors. There was nothing I could say that he wouldn’t already know.
I wandered into his office with the bottle of wine he loves, loved, I beg your pardon. He poured himself a glass and I sat up against his hip. That night I told him of my first transgression. I told him not hoping for forgiveness, but because I needed to be heard. I needed somebody to hear my life’s story and tell me I mattered. Though I would not wish the weight of my soul upon you, I desire your attention similarly.
It was the summer after 5th year. My father beat me every night. We only had enough food to eat a few nights per week. Everything hurt. Every inch of my body ached. I wanted to run; I would have run if I knew of anyone that might take me.
A rather interesting proposition came to me courtesy of Regulus Black. You should indeed know that name. He was younger than I, and rather annoying, but I liked him well enough. The Dark Lord wrote via Regulus to request a potion. He was grooming me even then.
He wanted a potion that could be considered a liquid Cruciatius. I believe the recipe came courtesy of Salazar Slytherin’s writings. The package contained the recipe and all the ingredients I would need to properly brew.
I worked on it every night, after my father had beaten me and fallen asleep. Having something to focus on other than being miserable kept me alive. The potion was complex, beyond my years, but I was beyond determined. I had some idea what the potion would be capable of, and obviously knew who it would be going to, but I was naïve as to who it would be used on.
Christmas, 1976, the Minister and her family were murdered using my potion. War was declared by my hand. Albus always saw fit to inform me that it would have happened with or without my direct involvement, but that does little to assuage my guilt.
He played with my hair while he finished his wine and then led me to bed. Albus took great enjoyment in undoing layer upon layer of buttons. Beneath those absurdly colored robes, he was still a sight. Not muscular, but not fat like my father either. Albus was something in between. He had the body of a man while I still, very much, had the body of an adolescent.
I was too skinny and unmuscular. There was not a single hair on my chest. In general, I am not… a remotely handsome man. But as he ran his finger over my abdomen and whispered sweet nothings, I felt as though I might be. I took him into my mouth and worshiped him until I saw the light, or at least until he showed me the light. As always, he was eager to continue.
He put me on my back and kissed my stomach while preparing me. It was soft and easy, like a gentle caress. Had he been anyone else, I don’t know that I would have allowed myself to give into the pleasure and enjoy. But he wasn’t anybody else. He was the only person that’s ever loved me.
He would worry about you, the way the students stare. Fighting the war was never going to be enough. You and I have not discussed our roles, much less where life goes from here. I am trapped in this castle –many of the survivors, despite Longbottom and Lovegood speaking in my favor, have held a grudge. Though well deserved, the risk to my life is enough to calm any inclination I have to venture outside these walls. Hogwarts is the only home I’ve ever known, and I expect the same is true of you.
For you it is less a danger of physical harm and more the risk of enthusiastic assault. You have the reality of wondering if anyone will ever love you for you. While I would never claim such a thing toward you, you will never know anything other than honesty from me. If I am angry, you will have deserved it. Should I be proud, it will be from your actions and not sentimentality. Should I, heaven forbid, be overcome with the desire to embrace you in fraternal joy, for we share the brotherhood of a mutually fought war, I shall.
I expect the same of you.
Honesty and trust are vital to what I need to teach you.
If memory serves, Albus and I had the same discussion in 1985. It was early, 3 am perhaps, and we’d enjoyed the night. I believe it was sometime between Samhain and Hogmanay. There are parts of that night I remember well –we drank too much and exchanged sweet nothings in Gàidhlig. I don’t believe he spoke a word of it before me. But I like to speak it in certain intimate spaces. He was a devoted partner and took the time to learn what was important to me.
By that point, there were few secrets between us –most centered on our respective families. I am a natural Legilimens and was well accustomed to using it, but what he suggested went beyond anything I had ever imagined.
Albus asked to instruct me in a much older mind art, one so old and so forbidden it no longer has a name. It allows the connection of two minds into one core, so to speak. Without the connection, I could not have killed him. His core would have gone on the offensive and likely put up enough of a fight to take me with him.
In 1985, there was no way for either of us to know what it would take to end the war. Do not assume that was the intention. He did it for a few reasons. With our combined cores, the Hogwarts wards became nearly indestructible. He always knew when I was upset and could calm me from his office. I could always feel his presence. There were days where it was the only thing that kept me sane, much less alive, particularly under the Dark Lord’s wand.
There are a great number of benefits to such a bond. Isolation is dangerous and I assure you, there are far worse things in life than letting me keep an eye on you.
S.S.