SNARRY-A-THON12: FIC: Aorist Title: Aorist Author:shiv5468 Rating: PG-13 Word count: 1,500 Content/Warning(s): (highlight for spoilers) *Use of present tense.* Prompt: #91: Instead of being hailed as heroes after the defeat of Voldemort, Harry and Severus (who survived Nagini's bite) are treated as big a threat as Voldemort. Several / all of Harry's friends get the same treatment. In deciding to fight back or leave Britain, they learn a lot about each other. Summary: Azkaban is no place for a hero, let alone two.
Aorist
The cold of Azkaban bites, and once it sets its teeth into your bones it doesn't let go, not for fire, not for summer sun, and not for simple warming charms.
Of course Potter offers to cast one, when he first comes to visit. The boy-who-lived doesn't have to hand over his wand before coming to call on a prisoner.
“It'll warm you up for a bit,” he says.
“And then I'll be cold again,” Snape replies. “But with the memory of warmth to taunt me. I don't see that as an improvement.”
“You wouldn't,” says Potter, but he puts his wand away. “I promise I'll get you out of here.”
“Don't make promises you can't keep, and don't try, is my advice. You're the saviour of the Wizarding World right now, but it won't take long for them to turn on you. And they'll turn all the quicker if you're seen to be siding with me.”
It's not cynicism if it's true.
The boy doesn't listen, of course, but then he never has before.
He does learn, a little, because he doesn't offer a warming charm again. He does bring a blanket, charmed to be invisible and warm. It's surprisingly thoughtful.
“It was Hermione's idea,” he says. “But I did the charms work. Well, Professor Flitwick helped a bit.”
He takes the blanket, and grunts, which might pass for thanks if the hearer were generous.
Judging from Potter's smile, he takes it that way.
“She's helping me with your appeal, as well,” he says.
“And Weasley?”
Potter's face clouds and he shakes his head. “He still can't forgive you for George's ear. But I'm sure he'll come round.”
Severus snorts.
Potter has news of another sort, details of the doings of his Slytherins and how they fare after the War. Better than he could have hoped for before the war, it seems.
Severus is warmed by more than just the blanket after Potter's departure. The blanket feels a little like forgiveness.
And hope.
The season turns, and the weather turns with it. The north wind whips the sea into a knife edge, striking at the rocks and trying to gouge the prison building from the cold, hard earth and fling it into the sea.
Potter returns twice more, the space between his visits growing in length.
Both times he is stripped of his wand.
Potter looks pinched and miserable.
“The last time you looked like this, it was your sixth year,” Severus says.
“I've grown a bit since then, I hope,” Potter replies.
Severus notices how much Potter has grown. No longer a smear of a boy, but filled out into something substantial.
“The Ministry growing tired of you yet?” Severus asks, and watches Potter carefully, to see if he lies.
“Something like that.” Potter looks over his shoulder at the grille in the door, checking for eavesdroppers.
As if listening charms didn't exist. Sometimes you can see the Muggle in him. Lucius was right that Muggle-borns never quite fitted into their new world. Nurture, not nature, to blame though.
“There are stories in the Prophet,” he says. “Wondering how much effect carrying Him around in my head for seven years had. Just one step away from calling me the next Dark Lord.”
Severus snorts. “You've not got the appetite for it.”
Potter's eyes narrow, then he shrugs elaborately. “Perhaps not. It is tempting though, the thought of breaking the Wizarding World, and then remaking it to your will.”
Severus feels a chill, unrelated to the weather. “That sort of thing rarely ends well,” he says carefully. “Wanting to make the world a better place is a dangerous thing.”
Potter smiles. “That's Hermione's job, not mine. I only want to make the world a better place for you.”
The chill recedes, a little. Those eyes could never belong to a man turning Dark.
Granger, on the other hand, was always ruthless. He's almost glad there's an ocean between him and her machinations.
“Ron's come round to my way of thinking,” Potter says. “And if I can persuade Ron, I can persuade anyone.”
He leaves behind a book, charmed to show the pages of any book he can think of. He swears it was his idea, and that he crafted the spells himself, wrapping it with a Notice Me Not charm so strong that it takes an act of will from Severus to find it when the covers are closed.
Potter does not come again.
The sun forces its way through the clouds to bring a touch of warmth to the prison, and just outside his window a straggling dandelion puts out a tentative, stubby flower.
Even in this harsh environment, life finds a way.
Inspections of his cell have dribbled away to once in a blue moon, so he has privacy to read wrapped up in his blanket. Potter's magic surrounds him with a dull murmur, a background thrum he can sense now that his own magic is blocked from him.
It's comforting, like a mother singing lullabies - he assumes - his mother never sang such sweet songs to him. Often, he lies there with the book open to a page, unseeing eyes fixed on the wall, and allows the wash of charm work to tickle at his finger's ends.
This is what frostbite is like: dead flesh tricking the owner into thinking it was still hale and hearty.
He should despise himself for his need to seek out that comfort, but this is Azkaban. It has broken stronger men than him, and whilst sometimes he thinks that turning stark, staring mad is what he should choose, the thought of howling at the moon like Lupin is disturbing.
He will hold tight to the book, to Potter's promises, and hope for freedom.
He tracks time by the precession of the shadows of the bars across the floor and the summer sun hits his window full on when Potter does come to Azkaban again.
He has been fortunate in acquiring a desirable, south-facing cell.
Potter comes but does not leave.
Severus knows this because the guards tell him, taunting him with the news that where Voldemort failed in penning up the Boy Who Lived, Snape has succeeded.
Snape almost weeps, that all his care for the man should come to this, but almost is not good enough for his gaolers.
They bring Potter to him one day. He has no glasses, and there is a dark smudge under his eyes that looks like a bruise.
It is a long time since Severus has felt the dark stirrings of the urge to Avada, but these men should be on their knees thanking Merlin that he has no wand.
Potter smirks at him, and at first Severus takes it as bravado.
He speaks one word.
Aestatis.
There is a sound, like the purest bell being struck, and the sound grows and grows until his ears are ringing. The guards clap their hands to their ears, and tremble as if they have been struck with a powerful blow.
This is what an earthquake feels like, the sense that earth has turned to water, that nothing is stable and the world has been turned inside out.
When Severus can open his eyes again, it feels like a Sunday morning in spring. That moment when someone wakes, knows they do not have any obligations for the next hour or two, and the bedding is warm and sweetly scented. The rain of the night has passed, and the sun is rising in the sky, burning away the last of the dampness, making everything new again.
There are tears starting in his eyes, and he has no idea if they are tears of joy or sorrow.
Potter stands before him, like an oak, and the world is wrapped round him like ivy.
“What have you done?” Severus asks.
“Brought Summer to the island,” he replies. “For as long as we need it. One day we will look down at the beach, and there will be a boat to take us back to the World - if we wish it - but in the meantime we will be warm together.”
There are no guards in Summer. There is food and drink, and the book of books, and always there is Potter. Potter and his soft mouth, and his hard cock, and all the other things in between that bring summer dancing through his life.
He does not know whether, when the boat comes, he will want to leave this place out of time, but he suspects that both he and Harry will be called back by ties of affection and duty to others.
Granger and Weasley will be waiting for Harry, and he will have to get used to sharing him again, and there is Draco to seek out and watch over.
But always there will be Harry to return to.
But he does not know, now, why he ever thought Harry's eyes reminded him of Lily's.