pekeleke (pekeleke) wrote in snape_potter, @ 2012-05-22 14:36:00 |
|
|||
Author: pekeleke
Pairing: Severus Snape/Harry Potter
Word Count: 5532
Rating: N-17
Summary: Four years after the final battle Severus Snape wakes up to HELL!
Warning(s): Strong language. Violence.
A/N: 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 23
Now that he knew that Potter had actually dared to follow him, he was constantly on edge. Constantly unnerved. Constantly wavering between the irrational desire to be the whole focus of the auror's green-eyed scrutiny and the terrifying need to be as far away from the man's anxiety-inducing attention, as he possibly could!.
He was driving himself crazy with his own constantly shifting desires and, therefore, became even more determined to avoid Potter altogether!. At least until the week was finally over and he could put the whole of Hogwarts between them!.
He'd gone as far as abandoning the flat before the first rays of sunlight had managed to so much as peek over the horizon. Thus avoiding, completely, the harrowing ordeal of breakfast with the auror, for three days in a row!.
The situation at home became even more fraught.
Every night he arrived later and later, in the hopes of forcing the gryffindor to concede defeat by retiring to bed before his return. And every time he found himself being both: bizarrely disappointed and irrationally elated, in equal measure, when he finally turned his key and found the boy under the archway. Silently waiting for his return with a thunderous scowl that seemed to be becoming darker, harsher, more and more outraged as the days wore on...
It was while he was quietly seating at a coffee shop that he finally felt it: that awful, prickly feeling one gets, on the skin at the back of the neck, when someone's watching you intensely...
He attempted to ignore the sensation, at first. Certain that he must have either imagined it, or that the person watching him had mistaken him for someone else. But the feeling remained. Until it actually managed to convince him of the fact that this was it: he'd finally driven the boy to take some sort of action!.
He was not certain what that action would be, though. And this bothered him, even as it forced his blood to pound with a sickening anxiety. With that same kind of agitation that usually comes with its own supply of wildly fluttering butterflies being released within one's stomach, and the cold knife of breathless, terrified nervousness swiftly messing with one's mind!.
He failed miserably to pinpoint Potter's location, when he attempted it.
He could find no one looking at him oddly, or in any other way, for that matter!. Regardless of how many times he searched the room, for the origin of the horribly unsettling sensation, he came back to the same conclusion: there was no one here that he either recognized or seemed remotely likely to have recognized him!.
He decided to abandon the place and strolled through the streets aimlessly. The awful prickle of awareness persisted in informing him that he was being followed. Very closely, too!.
He had not survived twenty years of straddling both sides of a lethal conflict by ignoring his own instincts when they told him, in no uncertain terms!, that his surroundings were not as peaceful as they looked!.
He was reasonably certain that it had to be the boy, but he could not really understand why the gryffindor would even bother with something as ridiculous as following him again. Not when they both knew that Severus would be forced to return to their flat, in order to comply with the letter of their oath!.
Surely, certainly, Potter must have some kind of personal life to attend to!. The man was on vacation, for Merlin's sake!. He should be out: enjoying his free time and engaging in... whatever the heck it was that young men felt like engaging themselves in, these days!...
There was no reason that Severus could see: no sane reason, at least!, that could possibly explain the little menace's newest intrusion into his privacy!. He'd confessed to Draco that he already knew what Severus had been doing with his time, therefore... this could not really be about finding out that information!.
The boy had followed him before and he hadn't even noticed it!. That was not the case today, though. He was being very blatantly and almost carelessly tracked. He was being... dared to sense the presence that was shadowing him!. It was obvious to him that Potter's eventual goal was confrontation.
The auror could not have failed to figure out Severus's intense dislike of foreign scrutiny. He tended to react, very badly indeed, when others tried to intrude into his life!...
They both had fought in the same war... They had circled one another with enough viciousness to have accurate knowledge of each other's quirks and talents. The Gryffindor had to know that Severus would detect him in the end... he was probably counting on it, the bastard!, or he would have tried much harder to avoid discovery, while in pursuit of a target who had been a spy for more than twenty years!.
Confrontation, of any kind!, with the little brat was definitely not on Severus's own agenda.
He decided, then, to follow the road down to it's very end: where it crossed with three others to form a hellish and very crowded intersection. There was a park near there and he was certain that he could loose his unwelcome companion in the bustle of the busy road. He'd turn around the first block and, then, cut across the grassy field: back towards his current position. He could take the whole exercise even further and go down, towards the Thames. Spend the remainder of the day walking idly by the river, maybe even pay a visit to the old Tower...
Potter sensed his intentions, though. After a while it became quite obvious that he was being very cleverly herded. It was clear in how he was suddenly jostled by a perfect stranger: forced, by the man's frighteningly bulky frame, to ignore the fact that he'd been about to turn into the same alleyway from which he'd just been, so very forcibly, pushed away. It was there: when a whole lorry's load simply... tipped over, making it completely impossible for him to cross the road, as had been his intention.
It was also obvious in how very suddenly the muggle traffic started to... misbehave, all around him!. In how some cars speed wildly past while others slowed down, so much, that they brought every other vehicle to a stand still. Cyclists got into the fray weaving in and out of lanes, swerving everywhere with dangerous, almost murderous recklessness.
It was there: when five burly men decided, for no apparent reason, to stand shoulder to shoulder at the mouth of a street, blocking his access to it completely, unless he decided to confront them!...
The more hemmed in that he became the more frustration that rose, to boiling point, within his chest. He was not stupid!. He could tell that the boy was trying to drive him into a rage and he knew, just KNEW!, that giving into his own temper was exactly what the auror wanted, but... By Salazar!, he was actually mad enough to chew iron bolts!.
Desperation made him finally halt: bang in the middle of a very busy pavement. He could see the child's intended destination from where he stood. It had to be that!. There was nothing else appropriate within sight!: It was some kind of field. An abandoned little patch of uncared for yellowish grass and rotting benches...
There was not a soul inside it. And the people that surrounded the place simply... walked through it, as if they could just... not see it!. It became clear to him that the whole place was warded. Invisible to muggles altogether... An apparition point, then. One that had been placed right in the middle of London!.
He took a deep, steadying breath and searched the street up and down, attempting to pinpoint the little menace!. People surged all around him, like some kind of utterly intrusive human wave. He disliked the way in which he was being constantly jostled by the crowd that surrounded him. But refused, at least for the moment, to be moved from his position by anything other than his own will!.
Potter was, of course, nowhere to be seen!, and a flash of utter annoyance raced through his mind when the memory of that godforsaken cloak of the brat came back to haunt him.
Invisible... The child was invisible to him!. That was an advantage that would allow his opponent to take the strongest position in this petty, little skirmish of theirs...
He started to panic then. There was nothing, at all, that he could do to avoid the brat!. He was out in the open, being literally herded!, and there was not a single defense that he could use to impose himself: Potter had the magic. And the cloak. And the immunity to openly curse anyone he felt like cursing, while in the presence of muggles. It was a prerogative that his position, as an auror, gave him!.
Severus knew that he was doomed to... surrender!... There was nothing else that he could do!. He had to give up his idea of escaping and accept his fate with grace: the brat had wanted to have this unwelcome conversation from the moment that kiss happened!.
He knew that his own negative reaction, to the mere possibility of having this discussion, was the only reason why the auror had decided to wait this long!.
He'd stormed out of the kitchen that day. Leaving the room, altogether, before the brat had had the chance to start uttering an apology. Or an explanation!. Or... whatever the Hell it was that he had been preparing to utter!...
Their every interaction, since, had been limited by both: his own conscious removal of himself from the house and the chilly, curt indifference with which he'd begun to treat the child!.
He'd been worse than merely forbidding. He'd been positively aloof!. He had not wanted to face the bloody auror and endure any sort of verbal proclamation of... regret!. That particular experience would have been so humiliating that he couldn't bring himself to even think about it!.
For a while he'd actually convinced himself that the boy would respect his obvious desire to avoid having a bloody dissertation on the whole ghastly event!. He'd been actually relieved to have been granted the reprieve, without having to force the child into submission...
Now, though, it looked as if he'd run out of time. Or patience. Or, maybe, it was luck that he finally had run out of!...
The auror seemed determined to... vent!. And Severus would have no other option but to... listen!...
Cold sweat beaded on his temple as the kiss flashed across the landscape of his mind. He knew that it was pathetic but... there was no way on Earth that he wanted to have this one conversation. Not with Potter of all people!. Certainly not with anybody else, for that matter!.
Panic forced him to move, as he was more brutally jostled than ever before, and he realized, with a flare of anger, that the brat was behind it, somehow!.
Patience seemed to have run out of the child altogether and Severus knew that, for the gryffindor to have used so much magic, so much force, in order to herd him here... There was nothing but frustration behind this!.
Potter was a dangerous being when he was angry!. He was too powerful by far. Too emotional!. He could be explosively difficult to handle, even when given the best set of circumstances. And Severus's own reticence to have this particular fight seemed to have served as the spark that had finally ignited an already volatile situation!.
His feet followed directions as he allowed them to drag him to that field... But with every step his mind was reeling. Praying. He was attempting to analyze his whole surroundings, refusing to give up, in his instinctive need to avoid their imminent clash!.
By the time he'd crossed the thick layer of wards that protected the little patch of grass he was trembling like a leaf. He was pale-faced and wide-eyed. He was utterly distressed...
He couldn't tell how long he just... stood there!. Waiting for the bastard to decide that he'd allowed him to cool off for long enough. He knew that the wait was a very effective intimidation tactic. One that all aurors were particularly fond of!. He'd been a victim of it plenty of times, but... It had never quite affected him like this!.
He'd always been able to scorn at the whole tactic. Laugh in the face of whomever dared to try it on him and remain stoically unreachable. Unbroken. Untouched...
He was none of those things now. He was very definitely affected by this whole debacle. By the kiss in the first place. By his own inability to forget it, or deal with it, or even have the whole god-dammed incident firmly erased from his mind, like so much garbage!...
' Oh, no!. You won't!... I'll force it right back in, if you so much as dare to remove the damn memory, Severus Snape! '
He jumped, in startled reaction to that darkly menacing growl, as the auror seemed to materialize right in front of him, from out of nowhere!.
It took him merely a blink to realize that, in his distress, he'd been projecting his own thoughts loudly enough for the boy to be able to pick up with truly insulting ease!. He felt ashamed. Furious with himself. With Potter. With the whole awful situation!.
' I'll do with my own memories whatever the Hell I want, Potter! ' He fairly screamed his rage, right into that rigidly determined face, and he trembled when he saw those green eyes narrow intently.
' These are my memories, too!. My life!. This is something that affects the both of us and I'll be dammed before I let you mess with it!. Or are you going to tell me that you'll remove it from your mind but leave mine untouched?. That'd be bloody pointless, anyway!...
I don't think you'd let it go!. At least not knowing, as you do, that there's only one witness in the world to the whole thing and you have virtually unchallenged access to him! '
He was not stupid enough to admit to that. Not in front of an auror!. Not in front of a potential obliviation victim. And, definitely, not in front of a Potter as incensed as he was right at this second!.
' Maybe I'd content myself with the certainty that you'd never be crass enough to bring the matter up into casual conversation. It's best forgotten, anyway! '
Those green eyes turned Arctic with anger. There was so much resentment, flashing emerald fire within the depths of that ever-darkening gaze, that Severus felt like flinching away. Cutting, frosty laugher rent the air only a second before the words themselves did:
' Newsflash, Professor: We are actually having this conversation!. Right now, in fact!. Seems to me that I'll continue to be the most awful disappointment to you, won't I?. I am actually crass enough! '
He was so shocked by the savage tone that tainted every single gritted syllable of that response that his brain froze. He was not aware of it, but he paled even further. His whole frame became rigid, in the blink of an eye, with the instinctive, urgent, need to be prepared to defend himself from this... this... absolutely livid rendition of the child that he'd once taught!.
' I do not wish to have this conversation! '
Potter's snort was, astonishingly, sarcastic enough to rattle him!.
' Of course you don't!. Godric forbid that you ever act like a normal human being and talk out your problems! '
He was so incensed, with the absolute rudeness of the little jerk, that he totally ignored the dangerous glint that had appeared on that emerald colored gaze:
' I do not have a problem!. I'm not the one who's running behind a former professor of mine, in some kind of stalker-like binge, just for the kick of it, Potter!.
I am attempting to regain some modicum of life, after having spent the last four years of it locked in a coma!. I'd be grateful if you could manage to conveniently disappear, from my otherwise perfectly fine evening, so that I might continue to enjoy it!. IN PEACE! '
The gryffindor laughed in his face. A bitterly furious sound that was so loud and jarring, that it made the small hairs at the back of his neck stand on end!.
' Gosh, Severus!. You are so far removed from your own emotions that you don't even see how they drive your behavior!. You are not trying to build back your life!. Your life is already built and waiting for you to join it!: Your job is waiting!. Your sickeningly annoying little family of Malfoys are about ready to explode with impatience for you to go join them, in some kind of creepy, all-Slytherin, bliss!.
Your rightful place in wizarding society is also ready to be filled!. Everyone is waiting for you to just... take it, for Merlin's sake!... And what do you do?: Do you venture into Diagon Alley? NO!.
Do you go, all the way to Hogwarts, and visit the staff there?: Of course not!. Godric forbid that you bother with such niceties as to visit Minerva, or even your precious Draco!. Never mind going to the trouble of calling on your dear friend: Lucious-Bloody-Malfoy!.
You wouldn't go to see your old house. Or even Grimmauld place!. And Hogsmeade... that old village wasn't even on your radar, never mind the fact that you've lived next to it for twenty years and actually know at least ninety per cent of it's inhabitants!...
I can think of at least twenty places that you could have decided to visit!. But no. Oh, no!. None of that called for your attention!. None of them intrigued you enough to bother with them!.
You've spent every second of every day away from home, for three whole weeks!. You've been HIDING!. In muggle London, no less!. Willing away the hours in one little coffee-shop, after another!'
He was livid with rage!. Every cell in his rigid body resented those fowl and unfounded accusations with a visceral kind of rancor. He was offended beyond all restrain. Pushed, by the boy's atrociously unfair judgment, into the kind of savage fury that so often had been directed, during his teenage years, at this creature's foul father!.
' You've got no right to decide what should or shouldn't be appropriate enough to “call for my attention”, as you so charmingly put it, Auror Potter!. My life is still my own, no matter how much you might wish for the contrary!. What's more: my motivations are none of your business!, and even if they were: you've just proved to me how much of a moron you've remained, despite having enjoyed the full benefit of the last four years!: I. HAVE. NO. MAGIC, POTTER!.
How the Hell do you suggest that I travel to Hogwarts?. Or to Wiltshire?. How could I have seen through the Fidelius Charm that protects both: Grimmauld place and Spinner's End? '
Potter blinked at him like the idiot that he was. And the sheer rage that had been twisting those young features into a mask of truly frightening virulence diminished visibly.
A frown furrowed the gryffindor's brow and his index finger rose to push those spectacles of his up the bridge of his nose, with an exasperated, jerky, motion.
' You saw this field. You entered it without a glitch! '
He felt a massive headache coming on. How, on Earth, had the founders decided to give so much power to this whelp?. It was so... unfair!... that he felt like howling to the Heavens in outrage!.
' This place is just a pitiful patch of dying weeds!. It has been warded against muggles so that they'd ignore the presence of the wizards who use it as a point of apparition!. But it hasn't been protected, in any shape or form, against those of us with enough knowledge of the wizarding world to sense it's presence!. Any squib would see this place!...
A Fidelius Charm is a completely different kettle of fish, Mr. Potter!. It is designed to fool wizards and witches who are in full possession of all their senses, to the level that only those allowed to do so should be able to see the hidden object or property! '
' Fine! ' The brat huffed with indignant resentment and a silence fell between them that allowed him to think, for the first time, without the all-pervasive cloud of sheer anger that had driven them to scream at one another, like two fishwives at the harbor...
Things would not end up so badly if he left now. He could see that the child had become distracted, from his initial belligerent intent, by the path that their conversation had taken and, now, it shouldn't be so difficult to just...
' Do not even think about it, Severus Snape! '
Ebony eyes shot up to clash with verdant pools of absolute determination and a new and unwelcome kind of tension suddenly exploded between them.
' I have nothing to say to you, Potter!. Let's avert this conflict all together!. I was in need of a shock and you did provide a truly exemplary one!. You have my heartfelt thanks!. Now... this shouldn't, ever!, have to be mentioned again. Not at all!. Not in any way, shape, or form!. We move on, and we forget it, and this whole... ghastly conversation becomes just... one of those things that was totally unnecessary! '
Potter gaped at him for a whole minute. He was blinking truly stupidly behind the clear lenses of his disorientlingly unfamiliar glasses.
' You are unbelievable!. How can you give me a half-hour lecture on all the reasons why we should forget it, without ever: not even once!, actually mentioning what happened? '
He cringed in response to the increasingly agitated hissing that was coming from the auror's incensed lips.
' Potter... '
' I KISSED YOU, OK?: There!, I've said it!. Now you can go right ahead and pale, and shake, and bloody faint for all that I care, Severus!.
I'm going to look you in the face and call it like it was, and you are going to stand right here, and listen to it: I kissed you!. Snogged you!. Planted you one, right on the lips!. How am I doing so far, Professor?. Do you like my wide range of sinonyms, or should I try to think up some more? '
' I'm warning you, boy...! ' He started to growl, in his coldest tone, only to be most startlingly interrupted by the vociferous bastard screaming at the very top of his lungs:
' I HAD MY TONGUE DOWN YOUR THROAT! O.K?. I did!. Let's face that one first, Severus! '
He literally cringed away from the insane jerk. Black eyes raked the area, in order to convince their frantic owner that the muggles who were passing the field had remained truly oblivious to both: their presence and that truly shameful screech!.
' I have nothing to add to your unnecessarily... graphic... description of the events in question, Auror Potter! ' He pointed out with quiet dignity. Thin lips pressed, all the while, into an almost invisible line of compressed fury.
' You have nothing to add... ' His own words were thrown right back in his face. Returned in a short, barked-like, challenging tone that he didn't like. Not in the slightest! ' What if I do it again, then?. Would you be equally unwilling to... comment? '
Now the child was truly irking him!. He was trying to poke him into open confrontation and Severus refused to give him the satisfaction!.
' To be perfectly honest, I don't think there is a possibility that the particular chain of unfortunate events leading up to that regrettable development will ever be repeated! '
Potter's eyes were bright with a fragile, truly sorrow-filled grief.
' It was a kiss, Severus!. Just a kiss!. One doesn't have to be beyond hysterical to receive one of those!. They could come our way at any point, you see?. Even here!, in this park!. It could just happen!, you know?...So very... easily!...'
He took a hasty step backwards. And, then, another: pointedly increasing the distance that separated him from the brat, while those strangely hurt emerald eyes looked on. Utterly dejected...
' This conversation is now at an end, Mr. Potter, if you don't mind!. I have no interest whatsoever on the what ifs of this world. Even less in those that are, so utterly risible, that only the most ridiculous of minds would even bother with the useless task of pondering them!.
I find it truly humiliating that you'd dare to tease me with the possibility of it ever being repeated!. I care not for those sorts of things and have no wish: none whatsoever!, of being reminded of it: either now, or in the future!. Am I making myself clear? '
' You find it humiliating?. You! Find... It!... HUMILIATING! ' Potter laughed, so harshly, that he startled off the few pigeons that had descended to peck morosely at the yellow grass. ' Do you have any idea of how many people I've bedded?. There are millions, out there, who'd kill their bloody mothers for a kiss of mine, Severus!. An actual kiss!: One of those with tongues, and teeth, and body contact involved!... Not a single, little peck devoid of any emotion, or actual participation, from at least one half of the equation!.
I've kissed. and Kissed. AND KISSED so many people that I have lost count, for Godric's sake!. And not one of the recipients of my attentions has ever run out of the room screaming, like some kind of little Victorian virgin! '
He was livid!. Absolutely enraged by the daring of this creature!. How dare Potter try to continue this unwanted conversation, after being explicitly told that it was not to his taste?. How dare the brat try to humiliate him, by implying that he'd been... the least remarkable notch on a very long pole of... depraved over-indulgence?.
He had no need to hear any further!. Had no intention of doing so, in fact!:
' How very... delightful... for you, then, Auror Potter!. May I suggest that you return to your... hordes... of admirers!, and swiftly proceed to heroically save their endangered mothers by actually delivering your exemplary smooches, without requesting so harsh a payment?.
Your many fans will be happy enough to enjoy the personal attention, I am sure. Just as you've so very... gentlemanly... boasted!.
I'm certain you'll enjoy it too, once all that... tongue, and teeth, and body contact that you so highly value enter into the equation!. And I'll be left, in solitary splendor, with all my wonderful Victorian reticence: EXACTLY AS I HAVE BEEN RECUESTING, ALL ALONG! '
They both trembled with indignant, explosive, fury in the aftermath of that truly inflamed rant.
Green eyes: wide, and harsh, and absolutely incensed flashed, with volcanic-like emotion, as Severus tried to whirl around, turn his head. His body. His whole self, away from the man before him and abandon the scene of this whole awful debacle, altogether!.
He was prevented from following through, though. Golden, callused digits closed around his wrist as he'd been turning away, halting the smoothness of his motion with a brutally harsh pull.
His face turned pale with anger as he shot ebony colored daggers down, towards that hand!.
' Release me, Mr. Potter!. NOW! '
'I resent the implication that I am some kind of slut for the masses! ' The boy snapped at him virulently.
' It wasn't me the one who said he's kissed millions!. Do not dish your dirt out unless you can take it, like a man, when it gets thrown back in your face, Potter! '
The auror's huge hand jerked him closer: brutal force was used to bend his will to that of the child. At least for the moment...
' How many have YOU kissed, then?. A dozen?. Two?. A hundred?... '
He was utterly gobsmacked by the question. By the dark, menacing undertone that the voice of the gryffindor had acquired as it pronounced it. By the utterly preposterous idea that anyone would even imagine that he'd been touched!. Ever!. By a breathing, willing partner!. Let alone a hundred!...
He pulled his wrist free, with so forceful a motion, that he felt it when the cuff of his sleeve ripped off.
' I, unlike you, child, am a gentleman!. I have perfect understanding of what the term privacy actually means!. And my own is more precious to me than unicorn horn, Potter!. I wouldn't share that kind of information with the likes of you!. Not for all the gold in Gringotts! '
The eyes that settled over him, then, were narrowed and derisive.
' Maybe I already know. I saw most of your memories when you were locked in that coma, anyway!. What makes you think that I didn't see you fornicating with half of your lovers? '
His black eyes gave nothing away. Not his shock at being spoken thus. Not his joy at having certain knowledge that there were things about his past that were still known only to him. Nor the absolute rage that surged within him, like a tidal wave of unmeasurable wrath!.
' Fornicating is for whores!. And for you, obviously, Potter!. The rest of us, mere mortals, prefer to indulge in a sharing of emotion that it's enhanced by the kind of act that I am starting to doubt you've ever truly participated in! '
His words acted like a brutally delivered verbal slap that seemed to harm the boy to his very core. Proof was there: in the sudden, complete paling of the young features. In the fact that a clear, wounded film of crystalline tears had appeared, from seemingly nowhere, and was now tainting with its presence the almost otherworldly beauty of those green eyes...
' I can do emotion, Severus!... I can do enough of it, for the both of us!. '
He startled backwards, then. Reading the Gryffindor's intention very clearly. It was plainly written in the suddenly determined set of that mouth, in the dark undertones that had added so much depth to those two sentences. And he knew, just knew: with perfect, stark insight, that he child would attempt to seize him with his very next motion.
That he'd be put, again, in the unendurable position of having to accept the touch of those young lips upon his own...!
And that this time... This time it'll be far worse, because he'd seen the whole thing coming!. He'd roused the boy's temper, to the point were it was obvious that Potter felt he needed to teach him a lesson!. A lesson that Severus had no intention of allowing himself to be taught!.
He panicked and flung both hands up between them, in a wild and desperate motion. Long dark hair flew, all around his strained face, as his black eyes clashed with the purposeful expression fleeting through the green gaze of the Head Auror.
' Potter!. You must take a hold of yourself!. Cease and desist, at once!, from your current course of action! '
The jerk laughed with a wounded, bitter, bark of sheer challenge:
' Or what, Professor?. What exactly would you do?. What could you do?: You are unarmed and alone, in here, with me!. You are at my mercy now, and you've got this one coming!. Just to show you how very wrong, about the whole of it, you actually are! '
Potter lunged for him and his heart halted. His breath hitched and his every nerve contracted with sheer horror. He felt faint with the awful knowledge that he'd have to endure such touch or leave!.
His skin turned utterly clammy and he wished himself a million miles away from here!. Safe and sound inside his rooms, back within Hogwarts!. He wished that it was possible for him to find shelter inside the very same rooms that he'd believed to have been destroyed, beyond repair, during the war.
He felt his every bone being crushed with mighty force and jerked his whole head away, in instinctive rejection to the unwanted intimacy that would certainly follow.
But the kiss he so feared never came...
The terrible pressure eased suddenly off his person and he was left alone. Utterly free... It was then that he realized that the feeling had not been caused by Potter, at all!. That the auror couldn't have had enough time to grab him so tightly!.
He discovered, then, too: that the child was, in fact, nowhere to be seen!. And that he'd managed, incredibly, to apparate himself to Hogwarts...!
TBC...