The voice under all silences. Chapter 14
Author: [info]pekeleke Pairing: Severus Snape/Harry Potter Word Count: 4229 Rating: N-17 Summary: Four years after the final battle Severus Snape wakes up to HELL! Warning(s): Strong language. A/N: First snarry fic, ever. English is not my mother tongue so mistakes are to be expected. Beta: None Disclaimer: The characters used in this fiction are not mine. No money is being made from it.
THE VOICE UNDER ALL SILENCES. Chapter 14
Potter seemed mad enough to chew off the walls themselves... He'd been marched -forcibly- upstairs and deposited, with frigidly polite care, upon the sofa before those eyes had, literally!, pinned him to the spot and a fiercely growled:
' You better stay right there, Snape or... Godric, help me! I will tear you limb from limb, if you so much as move an inch! Now I have to go back down there and fix all this bloody mess!: Dismiss the police! Call off the welcome dinner I had planned!... So many, carefully laid plans, Severus! And all of them destroyed! Because of you! '
The auror had then turned -sharply- around and left him to his sea of deep bewilderment... And he'd meekly remained there: like a puppet turned to stone...! He could not process what -in the Seven Levels of Hell!- had just happened here... but he'd seen enough seething anger in his life to know that Potter... Potter was seriously ticked off...!
The empty house seemed eerie as he sat there. Dark eyes downcast, like a chastised child. He felt quite... disappointed. Cheated, somehow. Potter had managed to destroy, with his puzzling histrionics, all the lovely joy he'd gathered during his outing! The morning had started off badly enough. That was true! But then... then he'd managed to go out and encountered both: Mr. Crowley, and that treasure trove of books... He'd found peace! And quiet! And acceptance there! He'd been nothing but a man who just... happened to love the written word!
The front door was brutally yanked open and, then, closed: with such force that it was a miracle it didn't simply smash into a million smithereens. He remained were he was. And his head lifted, in a jerky and rigid motion, with the utterly wearying need to assess the danger coming his way... With his dark eyes riveted to the mouth of the corridor, he straightened his spine and closed his hands into a pair of twin, frustrated fists. The continued absence of his -dearly missed!- wand burned a hole on the empty skin of his palms. His pulse pounded, fluttering visibly at the side of his tightly clenched jaw. He was tired. He was hungry. He was troubled, to the very depths of him, by that inexplicable little scene downstairs and he was -not at all!- in the mood to be brutalised by the clearly incensed auror.
Potter entered the room like a hurricane the beach: all wild motions and noisy grunting. Forceful violence clearly written in every line of his rigidly taut body... ' I am mad enough to kill you, right now, Severus! ' The voice alone was terrifyingly convincing. Never mind the ominously glittering green eyes or the mighty fists those hands were currently curled into.
He felt the instinctive need to swallow nervously and his cheeks coloured with temper at the very idea of... of himself! fearing this... this whelp! ' I see... ' He offered those two words as calmly as he could manage. He saw, of course, nothing at all! Least of all anything approaching half-a-sensible explanation for the horrid temper tantrum that the jerk was pulling out of seemingly... NOWHERE!
Potter took a deep, deep breath. Emerald eyes flashing with the complete disdain of one who knows he's being told nothing but utter, unadulterated trash. ' Do you? I doubt that very much, Severus! It is, in fact, my absolute conviction that you have not the slightest clue as to, exactly, what you've done wrong that is keeping you reasonably safe from being punched on the nose! Right at this second! '
His eyes widened. Pale face turned ashen-grey as his gaze darted -surreptitiously!- towards those white-knuckled fists... He opened his bloodless lips to offer some kind of retort, but the boy halted his next words cold when he growled -ferociously!-: ' Do. Not. Make. It. Any. Worse! '
Silence descended upon the room then. An absence of both: words and sound, that allowed the very worst kind of resentment to fester. Severus's stress levels shot up to the ceiling. He remained seated though. And silent. Dark eyes glittering -like onyx- in his waxy, exhausted face.
' Did you even have the good sense to eat something, at least? You've missed two whole sets of potions, you know? ' The youth's tone sounded explosive. Frustrated. It had an unpleasant taint of defeated dejection, adding grating bitterness to it, that Severus did not like. Not at all!
' I drank tea ' he offered the reply meekly. Quietly. An attempt to offer a -very reedy- olive branch that the child, blind as he was, seemed to miss.
' You. Drank. TEA! ' Incredulous laughter erupted from the boy's chest in a river of mordant, unpleasantly bitter anger. ' You drank tea!, while ALL of US had nightmares: imagining you collapsed in the back of some alley, slowly bleeding to death! Or attacked by a fanatic who'd found out, somehow!, that you are now MAGIC-LESS! Or kidnapped by who-knew-what-kind-of-maniacs!, in order to demand heap upon heap of galleons from the ministry itself! You missed your potions: One of them the vital serum that'll keep the effects of Nagini's venom at bay, until you recover fully! But... never mind any of that! All must be well with the whole blasted world, because the git extraordinaire, Severus Snape!, did remember to drink tea! '
He sat there like a lump of dumb, mute coal. He knew not what to say to soothe the increasingly peeved creature Potter had become! There was something quite odd here... These... reactions... of the boy seemed a tad... extreme!
He'd done nothing to deserve being treated thus! And resented -in the extreme!- having been put in a position that, virtually tied his hands!, when it came to retaliating with the full virulence of his own sharp wit. He had vowed to RESPECT! this irksome insect! But the brat had never sworn the same to him! He could, in theory, abuse him all he wanted and there was nothing, absolutely nothing! that Severus himself could do in his own defence.
For a second: One single second of absolutely miffed madness, he contemplated the exhilarating prospect of standing on his feet and majestically abandon this... disturbing... little bachelor pad of Potter's! Just imagining the shocked expression on the insufferable twit's face, brought a soft cocoon of warmth to his cramping stomach...! Then the fact that he'd sworn their loathsome pact on Draco's life returned to his mind -with the abruptness of a hammer killing an ant!- and he sagged, in abject misery, against the backrest of the sofa. Black eyes closing as he sighed with unconscious, heartfelt sorrow...
' Severus? '
Potter's tone had, surprisingly, mellowed down but he was just... too tired to bother with -the useless task- of attempting to ponder over the boy's mercurial moods. So he ignored the mystery and addressed the query, with a voice gone gruff with weariness: ' Yes, Mr. Potter? '
Silence: Stunned. Perplexed and rattled silence, filled the empty space and he didn't even care what it meant. Not at all! Potter sighed audibly: a half-rueful, too-loud sound that heralded the steps bringing him near: One. Two. Three. Four... A couple more and he felt the disturbing shift in the air, all around him, that alerted his every sense to that unsettling, utterly discomfiting presence so close to him, -too close!- for his own taste.
The sofa's cushy surface bounced slightly when the weight of the gryffindor joined his own and his body went rigid, with the absolute horror of having to share a seat with the little menace!
' You drive me crazy! '
His eyes shot open and he turned around, very slightly -mind you!-, to stare straight into a pair of bright emerald eyes. He was peeved enough to continue looking right into them, as he cuttingly delivered his frustrated, irked response: ' I have only ever offered the courtesy of reporting my every move to Albus Dumbledore, Potter! As you are -quite clearly!- NOT him, nor do I work for you in a position that requires you to be aware of my whereabouts, I saw no reason to inform you of my wish to abandon your... charming residence...! for a few hours, while you were -by the way- otherwise engaged! '
Golden colored cheeks turned rosy with some kind of passionate emotion. ' I was worried! You can barely walk unaided, for Merlin's sake! I couldn't believe that you'd be crazy enough to just... leave! Without even bothering to take the slightest precaution to guarantee your own safety! It's all so unlike you that it just... boggles the mind!'
His feathers ruffled at the very insinuation that he was some kind of little limp kitten, who couldn't be expected to take a single step unaided. ' Just because you wish to see me impaired doesn't mean that I am actually so, auror Potter!'
' Impaired? IMPAIRED?! ' The man seemed to be having some kind of stroke, right there: on the sofa! Those green eyes bulged with the utter, perfect anger of a wild animal. His neck corded and turned red, with the boiling of his blood, and he breathed like a horse about to expire after having run the very best race of it's life! ' You think me callous enough to have wished this... AWFUL! weakness of yours upon your head? I remember how you used to be!: You were brutal! You were brilliant! You were powerful enough! and vicious enough! to make most of us retreat! I confronted Voldermort himself and managed to -at least!- hit him with one curse or another!, but you... You I could not even touch! You deflected ALL of them!, before they were even half way in your direction!... And now... Now you can't even hold your wand!... '
Those words broke him. They just... BROKE HIM! Hammered him, once more, with the awful knowledge that he was... a squib! A magic-less nobody! An utter waste of time...! What the boy saw in his face he never knew, but he witnessed how those emerald eyes widened, with the horrible awareness that a line had been crossed here. A line that should have never been crossed between them!
' Severus!... '
Tanned hands dared to raise. Muscled arms driving them forwards -towards him- and there was nothing on this Earth! -or even the Universe itself!- that would have forced him to accept the coming touch. He shot up to his feet -so fast!- that his forearm swung in a violent arch, triggering the protective ward over his wounded limb. Blue coloured sparks flashed their angry warnings, as he took a couple of steps away from the dark leather couch.
Potter's gaze fixed guiltily on the ward. Pale young features turning distressingly thunderous, as that blatantly uncouth attempt at... pawing him!... had to be abandoned. ' There's no need to run away from me, Severus, for goodness sake! What do you think I'll do, eh? Look at you! The only thing more ridiculous than you running from the sofa, like a little scared bunny, is the way you are staring at me now! I... I wasn't going to harm you, in any way! '
Severus was so incensed by those taunting, cocky words that he just... opened his mouth and allowed the first words that came to it to do their damage: cut his enemy with their irrefutable truth and make him bleed...!: ' You. Harm. Me. Just. By. Being, Harry Potter! Your mere existence has conditioned mine -to such a level- that I haven't been allowed to live my own life, since the very day of your birth! I wished, so hard!, for you to never return to the Wizarding World that I cried, do you hear? I CRIED! the day Albus confirmed that Rubeus was bringing you to Hogwarts! I saw nothing but the very worst of omens in your coming! If you did, then the Dark Lord would have to -certainly!- follow! And I had already been a slave -to the two of you!- for long enough! '
Emerald eyes: Stunned. Wounded. And so reminiscent of Lily's, that they broke his heart anew, settled over his own: ' You can't blame me for any of that! I didn't even know you, back then! I had done NOTHING TO YOU! '
The shaken sentences sounded -to his ears- like feeble, trite excuses and his jaw hardened further, as he retaliated their intolerable mildness with the most powerful brutality he could find within himself: ' You didn't have to, Potter! I had already lost HER!: because of you! I was already aware that he'll return. Also because of you! I have spent the best years of my life buried at Hogwarts! Ignoring every single request made out to me: inviting me to join this private Potions Lab or other! I. Threw. My. Precious. Career. Down. The. Bloody. Drain!, just to remain at the one place I knew you'd eventually come to -if you'd ever bothered to honour the wizarding side of your own nature!- And that, Potter: THAT!, I ALSO DID BECAUSE OF YOU! For HER!, YES! But only because of you! I laid my life at your feet! My future! The chance to lead a life far removed from the echoes of YOUR war against HIM!, at least the second time! I have killed and I have tortured! I have allowed my own students to find harm...! I've become the kind of MONSTER! that I'd never wanted to be!: BECAUSE OF YOU! And I'd rather die than have YOU touch me, in any way! I don't need your guilt. Nor your hatred. Nor whatever the Hell it is that you've decided I deserve, inside that twisted little head of yours! I'll fulfil this Oath of ours to the letter!: FOR DRACO! But from you... from you I'll have not a thing, at all! Not one single thing...! '
Potter looked ill enough to die right there and then. His eyes shone bright green with tears. His hands shook. He was pale. And drawn. And trembling. He looked fragile and beautiful. Like a sprite made out of dreams... Or nightmares. Or both... ' Gosh...! That hurt much worse than I expected it to... ! ' That one sentence left those lips in a choked little whisper, and the puzzlingly strange words settled between them, like stones falling into a pool.
Silence followed them, like the shadow does the living, and the quiet that enveloped the both of them, then, felt like poison... The boy sat upon that couch. Eyes alight with something so reminiscent of pain that Severus's chest tightened. He had never relished harming those he'd spent year after year attempting to protect... He had never been able to withstand the mere shadow of discontent in the green of Lily's gaze. And to know, beyond a doubt, that he had caused it... tore at something raw and instinctive, deep inside him. He would not apologise though! He. Could. Not!... He had been driven -by this creature!- to the very brink of sanity in this night and he'd just... defended his very self with the only weapons still available to him!
' Sit down, Severus! You look ready to collapse! '
Potter's voice startled him right out of his thoughts, with that bewilderingly soft-voiced invitation, and he frowned with uncertainty: ' I'll rather not! '
' OH!, For Merlin's sake! ' The auror stood up abruptly, then. Darkly stubbed jaw clenched, so tightly, that he could hear those teeth grind against one another as the boy strode purposely past him.
A very elegant high backed chair was yanked -fiercely- from its position, beside the large table that now rested -in truly magnificent splendour!- in the middle of the dining room. The screech of wooden legs being carelessly dragged across the floor, towards his own immobile figure, rent the tense silence and he looked -quite stupidly- at the boy.
Potter reached him once more. Face ferocious with the kind of gritted patience of a parent, pushed well past all restraint: ' You'll seat yourself down: right this second, Severus Snape! Whether you do so on the chair or on the sofa, I don't really care! but, By Godric! I'll wring your bloody neck myself, if you collapse on me, again! Am I making myself clear, or do I have repeat it again with smaller, slower words? '
He was stupefied into silent, meek compliance by the ferocity of those words! His legs folded and he all but dropped on the chair that the auror still held. The humiliation that engulfed him, then, knew no bounds and he sat there: rigid as a wooden plank, with his gaze set firmly on the bland expanse of beige that was the wall at the other end of the room.
A hand settled: too-warm and perfectly unwelcome on the shoulder closest to the boy and he felt his neck give way to the abject sense of... shame...! that simply... drowned him. His head lowered. Long dark hair tumbling softly forwards: veiling the abject misery that, almost certainly, must have turned his -already ghastly!- features into the kind of twisted mockery of ugliness more befitting a Halloween-night mask, than any human face!
' All that fight... It is not necessary, Severus! You have nothing to defend yourself from! I am on your side, for Merlin's sake! I have been on your side for a long time! '
He could not find the strength to deal with whatever game this was! Not at the moment, at the very least! His eyes closed, behind the protective curtain of dark hair that hid his reactions from the brat's view and then -very minutely- he shifted his shoulder away from that... unnecessary... touch! Potter's digits abandoned their perch upon him with an obvious, but -thankfully quiet!- reluctance.
' I can see that you don't believe me, you know? You are not such a hard nut to crack, once one finds out how to read your words. Or your silences... You say more when you keep quiet than you think, Severus. Or maybe it is that you... You don't really care enough about me, about what I might think of you, to attempt a lie... '
His eyes opened at that. Bent head raising -very slightly- towards the auror. Black gaze clashed with pensive emerald and his voice, when he finally spoke, was a very clear reflection of the sudden exhaustion that seemed to have befallen him, out of virtually nowhere! ' I very rarely lie, Mr. Potter '
' I know that, Professor! I think I knew that, even when I was convinced that I hated you!'
That response was so unexpected that he blinked -stunned- and a soft, uncomfortable flush of disconcertion tainted his pale cheeks. The auror's features were intensely focused on him. The youth gave the extremely discomfiting impression of being one-hundred-per-cent devoted to this strange conversation and Severus frowned. Uneasy.
The boy returned, very slowly to the couch. His every move bizarrely careful. Unnecessarily gentle. Soothing, even. He was suddenly reminded of Rubeus Hagrid. Of the way the giant behaved in the presence of one of those frightened, dangerous beasts he'd invariably attempt to tame...
' I don't understand what is happening here! ' He was distressingly aware that he was tensing. His whole face apple-red with the humiliation of knowing himself so utterly under scrutiny! He disliked attention when directed towards him. Hated having foreign eyes trained upon his person, for no reason that he could clearly discern! And detested, to the point of total abhorrence, the very thought of anyone attempting to... understand him!
He suspected... No. He was certain! that the brat was analysing him, studying his every motion and word carefully. Like the herbologist examines the properties of one grubby seed or another... and he didn't have the smallest inkling as to why the irksome creature would even bother with such task! He felt exposed and vulnerable. Absolutely floored by the horrid, disconcerting awareness of finding himself the object of someone else's focus.
' Nothing is happening here, Severus! We are... attempting to have a conversation -I think!- Nothing sinister there. Yeah? Just two men, trapped inside four walls with one another, trying to get to know their companion better '
' I'd rather pass on that, if you don't mind, Mr. Potter! I have very little interest in getting to know you as a person, you see? We... we don't really run in the same circles and, therefore, I see no reason to bother with the effort of attempting a very... short-lived rapport, If it's all the same to you! '
The boy held on to his casual smile with visible effort. He was truly tenacious, it seemed. Taking every single one of those -brutal- shots, with a disturbing equanimity that Severus found himself resentfully admiring.
' It's NOT all the same to me, Professor! I don't want to go back to the days when we hated one another! I've told you this before: I. DON'T. HATE. YOU. ANY. MORE! I won't let you hide from me -from everyone!- just because you are too emotionally-stunted to accept that there are people in this world who do care -dearly!- for you! People other than Draco-Bloody-Malfoy and his whole thrice dammed family! '
He heard nothing past that appallingly offensive definition of the whole of his persona: ' Emotionally-Stunted?! ' He repeated every syllable with the kind of outrage left for the most heinous of crimes. And the fact that his bitterly cold tone managed to make the brat flinch, could not soothe the sting -so very casually delivered!- to his own, smarting pride!
' Sheesh! I'm sorry, Sir! I... That was totally out of line, and I do regret having said it quite that badly! But... I'm sure you get me, Snape! There's no need to throw a hissy fit over it! We are trying to get past some seriously heavy stuff here! It has to be done some time, so... Relax and just... Take it!, will you? You accused me of having been born to destroy your whole dammed life!, and I took it on the chin. Did I not? '
Severus's whole frame had turned into stone. Totally transfixed by the sudden understanding that they were actually having some kind of... disgustingly hufflepuffish... HEART TO HEART!: ' I shall not put up with this utter nonsense, Potter! ' He exploded, in ruffled rejection of that astonishingly ridiculous idea. He shot to his feet, in the very next blink, and attempted to walk away. Only to be -most rudely!- interrupted by the auror's very pointed little comment:
' Running away, Severus? I had you pegged for the kind of man who does not hide from introspection! '
His nostrils flared and his cheekbones coloured with the kind of ire that only those named Potter! had ever provoked in him, with so very little effort!: ' I refuse to be taunted into conversation with you, like some kind of ridiculous teenager, Mr. Potter! I am a grown man of forty! I have learned, during my time, not to engage in wasteful interaction -beyond the demands of formal courtesy- with those who are of no interest to me, in any shape or form! I have no intention of descending into an even more degrading exchange of insults and condemnation with the likes of you! Now, if you would excuse me!, I have had a very long day and I am tired! I am in need of a shower. Followed by a -preferably wizarding- change of clothes and a small meal! Unless, of course, you'd rather deny me the immediate fulfilment of those very basic needs?'
His black eyes, hard as stone, fixed upon the little bastard with the kind of frosty menace that would have made any hippogryph quiver. Potter, though, glared at him. Emerald eyes alive with a challenge that was tainted with a puzzlingly deep worry. It was the worry, he suspected, that finally won him his respite. For the boy's lips did grant him his own wishes, with a few, softly spoken sentences:
' Of course you can shower, Severus. And eat. And rest... You should also take your potions, you know? You've missed at least one dose of most of them... You come first, you see? If you decide to doubt everything else... At least do me the courtesy of never doubting that! ... They say Rome wasn't built overnight and I suspect that we, Professor, will take ages to even come to a small agreement. But it'll keep, at least for now. It'll all keep... Until you are finally prepared to give us -both!- a real chance!...'