pekeleke (pekeleke) wrote in snape_potter, @ 2012-07-06 12:23:00 |
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Author: pekeleke
Pairing: Severus Snape/Harry Potter
Word Count: 6054
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 26
The door opened for him without resistance and that alone alarmed him instinctively.
He was unused to being granted entrance anywhere without having to prove himself first in one way or another.
Potter though... Potter seemed to be the one exception to the rule that defined his every interaction with other people. Even Albus had demanded a Wizard's vow from him before giving him his chance. And Luc... Luc had taken true dedication before he'd allowed himself to be convinced of the fact that a half-blood, any half-blood, was actually worthy of his lofty attention.
It had been always that way. Always!. Until Draco... But his godchild had been a baby, he'd cared not about Severus's bloodline, nor about his allegiance in a war that he'd had no idea was even being fought!.
Draco had never seemed to be aware of his physical failings, or his terrible temper. Nor had he ever been bothered by the fact that Severus's tongue could be lethally cutting when displeased...
His boy had just... given him his love, his trust and his devotion without any kind of previous negotiations. And now Potter was apparently trying to show him that others, adult others, could be equally willing to show him the same kind of trust, without all that soul-destroying begging...
Potter had distrusted him always on principle as a child. But the boy had been following Severus's own cues. Responding, with defensive dislike, to a man who'd despised him openly.
He crossed the threshold to the gryffindor's chambers, wondering what life would have been like, for all of them, if he'd been less hostile to Lily's child from the beginning...
But regretting the past would not change it. Not in the slightest... and he seriously doubted that he could have shown more tolerance towards the boy, anyway!.
It was odd: to look back now and realise, maybe for the very first time, that he might have been wrong all along!. That his reactions to the child had probably been unjust. That he'd allowed his old grudges against the father, his deep guilt about the mother, to colour his every interaction with the youth that their union had produced.
Sighing tiredly he allowed the door to close behind him and stood there, utterly transfixed!.
This was the kind of place where he could imagine someone as intense as Potter living. This had that man's vibrant personality plastered over every surface!. On every single item that lay, carelessly abandoned, all over the place...
There were tables everywhere, covered with a mind-boggling number of books!. There were quills and parchment all over the floor. There were at least three coffee mugs piled up on a small sink, just under a window that overlooked the Quidditch pitch...
There was a moody print of a lonely, rain-washed cliff occupying the far wall, and a veritable maze of framed pictures on the mantel of the cold and empty fireplace.
There was laundry that looked to be both: clean and dirty, piled into richly coloured mounds by the small breakfast table. There was a map of England by the fridge, certain spots crossed out with red ink. There was a transparent surface that somehow reminded him of a classroom blackboard, tainted with the horror that was Potter's infernal scrawl scratched over a truly dizzying array of little arrows that connected the lines of text to one another. There was a pensive, too...
He stepped further into these chambers and felt something strange wash swiftly over him. It took that confusing sensation of fondness, of warmth and comforting welcome, for him to realise that he'd crossed some seriously strong wards. Wards that had been set away from the doorway itself... Wards that hadn't halted his progress either!.
So... Potter was a bit paranoid about security, it seemed. He wondered why...
This did not fit, at all, with his own pre-conceived ideas about the auror: He was young. He was famous. He was good looking to the point of irritation, and yet... He had a bachelor pad meant for nothing but... indulgence. While he'd chosen to live his day to day life within the awfully constricting atmosphere of a children's boarding school!. It made no sense whatsoever...
Why would the Head of the Auror Department decide to live in a room at Hogwarts, for Merlin's sake?. Didn't he still have that awful monstrosity of a house that Black had left him?. Didn't he earn enough to buy his own place?. Or was there some element of... escapism... associated to this choice?...
He shuddered with the thought. Fame!... Potter could have been attempting to find shelter from all the media attention that followed him wherever he went...
And now... Now Severus himself faced the very same prospect, if his godson's allegations were to be believed. They must be true, of course. They had to be!. How could he explain the student's overwhelmingly friendly reaction to his presence in the castle, otherwise?.
He'd been given an ovation, for Salazar's sake!. The mere memory still brought him more befuddled surprise than pleasure!. It had been so unexpected! So undeserved! So... truly humbling!...
He reached the middle of the small sitting room and stood there. Uncomfortably conscious of the fact that he was here: alone in someone else's dwelling. Invading a territory that did not belong to him, in any way!.
He detested the feeling. It brought tiny goose-bumps to the skin of his arms and he knew not how to come to terms with the horrifying intimacy of it all!.
There were items that belonged to Potter on the sofa. The chairs were about to break under the weight of the various things that seemed to have been distractedly abandoned on top of them...
The whole place was truly a pigsty. It spoke either of a busy lifestyle, an extremely disorganized mind, or of a sudden, unexpected upheaval in the ordinary existence of it's owner... Severus couldn't really decide which one of those options was the most accurate. But he was... disinclined... to remove the auror's belongings from their perch in order to sit himself down, lest he managed to disturb something that was important to the man!.
Unable to decide what to do he started to walk around, aimlessly. He was tired, but the excitement of the day still buzzed through his mind, making him feel too restless to settle down for the night!.
He wondered if a small cup of warm milk would help him settle, but a sweeping glance around the room revealed the absence of a pantry of any kind. There was alcohol in a corner, though. A lot of it!. He shuddered at the sight and shied away from that worrying display. Wondering all the while what, exactly, about his own life bothered that boy so much that he felt the need to drown it quite so thoroughly!...
The fireplace suddenly flared into life and it startled him, so badly, that he jumped.
He whirled anxiously around, hand extended forwards to grab the first heavy object that his fingers encountered, just as his gaze settled on the pair of amused green eyes that were staring straight at him from the fireplace!.
"I haven't yet started to annoy you enough for you to grab my photography stand and point it at me so threateningly, Severus!"
He looked down at the odd thing in his hand, ignoring the humorous comment for the moment. His hands itched to keep this... stand... clutched rigidly in his fingers, even as he forced himself to return it to the table.
"I didn't realize that it was you!. It could have been any one of your acquaintances, calling in to speak to you. I wasn't sure about how favourably anyone might have reacted to finding me here, instead of you!"
On the other side of the fire Potter seemed to have sat himself comfortably. His whole frame had lowered somehow, and now green-tinged friendliness filled the face within the flames.
"None of my friends will harm you, Severus!. The wards I've got on the place wouldn't let them, anyway!"
They looked at each other uncomfortably for a second or two. He was uncertain as to how to behave in this situation. His tongue seemed to have frozen with a crippling kind of... shyness, and he found himself unable to utter a single word before this man who'd been inside his head!. Who'd pursued him through half of London, before corralling him mercilessly, and then had proceed to force him into an unwanted confrontation over that kiss that they had shared...
Had Potter really been intending to... touch him... in that manner again?. Or had he simply imagined the danger and just... spooked himself with the mere possibility?. Why on Earth would the boy even want to... repeat such a thing?. And with him, of all people... It made no sense at all!.
He, who looked like the shadow of a Dementor, couldn't have managed to inspire genuine desire in a man like this one... Not really!. Definitely not without the need to bring him out of another bout of hysteria!.
Potter must have been trying to bring their faces together so that he could look him in the eye in a more threatening way!. They'd been arguing, after all...
And he'd thought that the auror had been trying to... dear Salazar!, he was an utter idiot!.
The idea that he had... overreacted... in the most ridiculous manner, flitted through his mind and he felt faint with sheer embarrassment!. Colour blossomed along his cheekbones and his eyes, dark and utterly mortified, lowered towards the floor.
"Severus?. Are you all right?. You look a bit... stressed!"
"I'm merely tired, Mr. Potter. It has been a very long day." His reply was firm, but clearly only half of the whole truth. It was immediately apparent that the gryffindor saw through him.
The green eyes narrowed thoughtfully and that intense gaze became alive with a speculative kind of focus.
"I thought you'd be happier!. With all your colleagues there, you must have spent the afternoon chatting away... Was it really that much of an ordeal to go back home, Severus?"
He could not shake the feeling that they were having a conversation that didn't belong to people such as them. Exchanging his thoughts and emotions with another was not something he did regularly. Or, even, rarely. He tended to be... circumspect, to the point of crippling reserve, about his day to day activities and thoughts.
Luc had always accused him of discouraging new friendships with his attitude, but... It was not something that he could simply turn on, or off, at will!. He was just... extremely shy!. And... distrustful. Maybe even plain, old fashioned, misanthropic...
People kept away from him and he was happy enough with that attitude. It made things easier, somehow. He actually liked the fact that he did not have to navigate through a million uncertainties every time that he opened his mouth!. Or squirm uncomfortably in the presence of another while he waited, with a terrified sense of heart-pounding humiliation, for the moment when they'd decide not to bother with him any longer...
This attempt at an end-of-the-day-sort-of-conversation was a new and unnerving experience!. It smacked him of the kind of domesticity that he'd seen so often between Luc and Cissy.
He'd never had anyone who'd bothered to ask him about his afternoon...
"I haven't yet decided how I feel about this evening, if you must know" He finally offered that answer guardedly, unable to decide if he was happy or not with this strange and utterly unexpected shift in the nature of their... friendship.
Potter frowned at him. A hand rose, wide and apparently nervous, to dig trenches on the wilderness that was the boy's mad mop of hair.
"Why?. Was anyone rude to you?"
Dark eyes shone with a puzzled kind of confusion. He finally decided to approach the fireplace slowly. Just two steps though. Not too close...
"Why should you care if they were, Mr. Potter?. You are not my... personal shield... against the world!"
Potter laughed, somewhat bitterly. Bright green eyes alive with something very much like longing.
"I'd love to be, though. Not that I think you'd let me!. But... If wishes were horses, I'd have had to move into a stable a long time ago!"
He was floored by the oddness of that statement. By the soft and yearning tone with which it had been pronounced. He wasn't certain of what was going on. Was his mind playing nasty tricks on him, or was the boy actually implying that he had a... craving... for some sort of further closeness between them?.
"Is it true that Lupin died?" He asked the question abruptly, with a point-blank sort of bluntness that made the boy clearly flinch.
"You didn't know for sure?. I keep forgetting that your memory of the battle only extends as far as that horrible scene in the shack!. I can give you a fast run-down of event's, if you want, Severus. I could tell you who survived and who didn't. What everyone's up to nowadays... that sort of thing!"
The mere idea sickened him totally. He had no desire to return to those memories. Not unless he had to!. He'd been submerged up to the neck in the bloody war, and the last thing he wanted was to be forced to talk about it!.
"I'd rather not, if you don't mind!" He responded a bit too forcefully. His horrified dark eyes had opened wide in absolute rejection of the idea, and the boy frowned in apparent discontent. A sigh forced the dancing flames into a wild flutter, for a second or two, before the boy's puzzled answer reached his ears.
"You were the one to bring Remus up, Severus!. I thought that you were feeling bad about not knowing what happened. I was trying to help you, for Godric's sake!"
He held tightly onto his temper. Reminding himself, firmly, that the boy hadn't done anything to offend him, in any way. It was not the auror's fault that Severus's own point had been too oblique for a Gryffindor's mind!.
"I was not expressing a desire to find out the nitty-gritty of the final battle, Mr. Potter!. I was attempting to ascertain the current lack of... paternal influence in your life, and actually insinuating that I am a rather uninspired choice for a stand-in!"
Potter seemed to have been shocked right out of his little funk. He blinked owlishly at him for so long that Severus began to think he'd rendered the Savior of the Wizarding World dumb!.
Laughter exploded suddenly from the fireplace. Cold, heartbroken laughter.
"You think that I want you to be my... second-hand father?. Who do you take me for, Severus?. I kissed you!. KISSED YOU!. With tongue, for Merlin's sake!.
I tried to do it all over again, just this afternoon!. What part of all that did you miss?. I thought that's what made you run away in the first place!"
He'd turned to stone right were he stood. There must be something wrong with his hearing!. It was either that or the child had lost his marbles and was spouting disconcertingly unconnected words out, into the Ether!...
He decided to ignore altogether the most contentious aspect of that little rant and addressed that last comment instead:
"I did not run away, as you so charmingly put it, Mr. Potter!. I apparated myself accidentally!"
That green gaze stabbed him with the most pointed look that the human eye can produce:
"No, Severus. You did not apparate yourself accidentally!. You wished yourself away from me!. As far away as you could possibly go and still remain in The United Kingdom, actually.
You did that because you'd rather die than accept another kiss from me!. I get it, all right?. There's no need to sugar-coat the obvious: I made the pass too soon!. And now you've gone ahead and returned to shying away from me and giving me little suspicious looks, every time that we are in the same room together!"
He felt faint with alarmed shock. He'd been brutally jolted out of his every perception of those very same events by the boy's... frighteningly bizarre account!.
His throat spasmed with perfect inability to produce a single sound, and his brain just... froze!.
He felt... odd!. He was... distressed!. He feared that he'd kneel over and die, unless he managed to breathe in the next few seconds...
His legs finally gave and he collapsed to the floor, right where he'd stood.
Dark eyes fixed on Potter's as the boy remained there: face firmly entrenched within the flames. Not an hallucination, then...
There was a loud, strange roar in his ears. A fierce pounding of agitated blood within his veins. He felt sick. He was... speechless. He had never been spoken to like this, in his whole life!...
"Severus?"
The boy called him, tone worried, and a sharp edge of hysterical recognition flitted through his mind. He recognised the tone!. He'd heard it about a hundred times before, but had never truly paid it any attention!. This child... Lily's child had developed some sort of unhealthy fixation with him!...
"I thought that unfortunate kiss we shared had been an... act of mercy... on your part, Auror Potter. I was in need of a shock and you... you provided me with the most effective one that you could have possibly produced!...
I am deeply sorry if my subsequent behaviour led you to the belief that I was attempting to cast... aspersions... on your, much boasted about, prowess!. That was never my intention. You need not prove me wrong, you see?. There's absolutely no reason why you should convince yourself that you feel a desire to... repeat... that kiss, in any shape or form!"
The boy was pale. And hurt to his very soul, by the look of him. There were tears in those eyes and forced as he was, by his position on the floor, to look straight into them, Severus's throat convulsed wildly and he swallowed. Repeatedly.
"I don't kiss people out of pity, Severus!. I could have slapped you out of that funk of yours, if I'd wanted to, and have done away with the whole situation!. I'm sure you'd have stopped laughing long enough to try and throttle me, at the very least!.
I saw an opportunity and I took it!. It was a bad call on my part, I admit that. It was too much. Too soon. And, probably, too intimate for you at the moment, in every possible way...
I was too impatient and now we have gone back to the beginning!. I just... I don't want you to grab onto this new excuse of yours, about me being some kind of good Samaritan that was trying to help you out of a tight spot!.
I was a right selfish bastard, OK?. I wanted to kiss you and I did!. I wanted to do far more than kiss you!. I'm not letting you invent some convincing little lie to hide behind, Severus!. Not with this!.
I DESIRE YOU!. Sexually. All right?. I... I'd be ecstatic to take you to bed, at any time that you feel like allowing me to do so!..."
The whole of Hogwarts could have crashed down to the ground and, then, sink beneath the soil, never to be found again, and Severus wouldn't have cared at that moment!.
He had never, not ever in the whole of his life, been on the receiving end a sexual proposition!. Never mind one as blatantly obvious as this one had been!. And coming from Potter, no less!. POTTER: the Saviour of the Wizarding World, himself!. James Potter's son!.
Dear Merlin!. This could not possibly be happening to him!. Not at all. Not in any way!. Definitely not in real life...
Had he been more tired than he'd thought and fallen asleep on the couch?. Was he, even now, lost in the throes of this... inexplicably vivid nightmare, attempting to convince himself to just... wake up?.
Had Potter's kiss perturbed him so much that he'd proceeded to... invent this whole scenario in order to... take the experience even further?...
He knew that he'd been thinking about it since it happened. Pondered on the whys, the hows, and what might be the best way to react to the whole thing. The best way to protect himself from the embarrassing acknowledgement of it having ever happened. But for his subconscious mind to go to this level of... subterfuge... it was just too mind-boggling to be sane!.
"I'd like to wake up. Now!. Please!..." He whispered quietly into the thick, tense silence.
From the fireplace, Potter sighed with heartfelt annoyance.
"Come on, Severus!. You can do better than this!. I don't deserve to be put through that nightmare thing of yours again!"
Affronted perplexity descended over his senses. This could not be happening!. It. Just. Could. Not. Be!.
But, then, wouldn't a conjured Potter be less... well, Potterish?.
"I don't see what you have to complain about. This is my bloody delusion, boy!. I get to decide when I want to send you packing and you are supposed to disappear in a puff of... ash or... whatever!.
Those green eyes clashed with his own with the stubbornness of a dragon.
"I'm not a delusion, Severus!. You've got to stop playing that stupid game every time that you don't like the turn of a conversation!"
He felt wronged by the sheer disrespect contained in that frustrated statement.
"I'm not the one playing games here, Potter!. And we were not just having any old conversation!. You were attempting to convince me that you... you... want to.... cavort!. With me!"
The auror's eyebrows shot up as high as they could go and still remain firmly planted on that furrowed forehead.
"Cavort?... You make it sound as if we'll find a patch of grass and roll around on it all afternoon long, like a pair of puppies!.
Why is it so hard for you to get this into your head, Severus?. It is not so complicated. I'm pretty sure that you've heard it all before, but let me say it even more plainly for you now. Just to make sure that you don't accuse me in the future of not having been clear enough!:
I want to throw you down on to a bed, or a sofa, or the floor, and take you!. Penetrate you!. Fornicate with you!. Procreate, have sex, screw the living lights out of you... and whatever other euphemism for the sexual act between two adults you can come up with, once you decide to put that brilliant mind of yours to good use!. OK?"
Hot color engulfed his whole face as he sat there and... stared... straight into those flames as if petrified. His mind shorted and he couldn't have moved a muscle to save his sorry life, had it actually been in danger.
"I... You... No. NO!. I don't know what game you are playing here, Potter, but I'm done with all this nonsense!" He jumped to his feet as if poked with a rod and turned his stiffened back around, searching blindly for a door of some kind. A escape route that would allow him to... abandon... this ridiculous conversation before he'd ended up throttling the child!.
He had barely moved an inch when Potter's frosty tone nailed him to the spot:
"If you so much as take another step away, Severus Snape: I swear to you that I'll cross over there, RIGHT NOW, and tie you to a chair until we have this out to my complete satisfaction!"
He turned back to the brat. Black eyes wide with panicked anxiety.
"I do not wish to listen to this drivel!" He snarled, defensively. Pale face rigid with absolute rejection of the whole topic. "You can't have a conversation such as this one, when one of the parties involved in the discussion has no wish to be... approached, Potter!"
Silence settled between them, like the headstone over a grave: heavy, and mournful, and utterly, utterly, heartbroken. It must have been the single most eternal second of Severus's entire life!.
Then the brat sighed with crestfallen uncertainty.
"Why, though?. Why don't you wish to be approached?. Is it because I'm a man or is it because I'm me?”
"I have been attracted to men before, if that is what you are asking, Mr. Potter. That was a very long time ago, though, while I was still a student. Not that is any business of yours, of course, but... it would be beyond hypocritical of me to even consider insinuating that I'm rejecting your very flattering... proposition... out of simple homophobia!"
Surprisingly the boy's visage turned even paler, those green eyes became twin reflexions of polished emerald heartbreak.
"It's because is me, then. Isn't it?. Is the idea of becoming involved with me that... disgusting... to you?"
He floundered under the sheer strength of the incredulous disbelief that such a crazy question managed to arouse within his chest. His throat closed and his breath hitched. His eyes burned with humiliation.
"How can you even ask that question, Mr. Potter?. Regardless of what else is obviously wrong with the whole ridiculous idea... have you actually looked at yourself recently?. On a mirror?"
Potter frowned. Beautiful emerald eyes becoming visibly disconcerted by the second.
"Why?. I have it on good authority that I don't look so bad, you know?. The hair is all wrong, I agree, but... no one's ever complained that I make their eyes bleed, or something!"
The awful, hot, bitter-tasting bile that rose to the back of his throat then, should have poisoned him on the spot if it was indeed true that there were loving Gods up there!. Only... it didn't. And he was forced to answer his own figurative question in this: the most degrading moment of his life!.
"I have been, though, Mr. Potter!. Accused of making people's eyes bleed with my unbearable ugliness, that is.
I have been... described in painfully punctilious detail many times. I am in no doubt, whatsoever, about my many physical... failings!.
I see no reason why a man such as yourself who, by his own admission, has enjoyed the attentions of millions, should decide completely out of the blue that he finds me desirable!
I will not be mocked by you!. Not in this manner. And I will not be yours, either!. Not in order to become the ugly notch that you scored out of sexual ennui!”
The auror seemed to have been left utterly speechless. He had paled and was now... gaping!. Those green eyes were staring straight at him with a baffled and disconcertingly confused expression.
"You think you are too ugly for sex?. Severus, that's absolutely insane!. From all the bloody excuses that I've ever imagined you using to shoot me down with, this one wasn't even on the cards!"
His shoulders shook with the effort to remain in position. He wished to leave the room. Abandon the whole irksome conversation!. Seek refuge, somewhere truly inaccessible to the little menace, and attempt to forget the last half hour of his life!.
But the threat the boy had made hovered over him. If the whole ghastly situation was uncomfortable enough to make him grit his teeth, when discussed through the floo, he couldn't even imagine the horror of being forced to... endure it, while the brat was in the room!.
"Then your thought process must have been even more ridiculous than I feared, Mr. Potter!.
When have I, ever, given you the impression that I'd... welcome... this kind of advance?. From you, no less!... Have you lost all sense, child?. I was your teacher!. I'm old enough to be your father!. I have no interest, whatsoever, in having some kind of... sleazy assignation with you!"
That last sentence rang, in the dreadful silence that followed.
The fire crackled. Dancing flames waved in agitated little patters, within the hearth, as Potter's gaze filled steadily with something so akin to turbulent indignation that Severus felt like flinching.
"Calling it sleazy is a bit... unkind, Severus!. I was expecting the other two, though. So, here is my answer to those: Yes, you were my teacher, but that was about a million years ago!. I've grown up. I'm not at school anymore. I can go ahead and get involved with as many former teachers of mine as I want to!. Now that that one is done lets talk about your age for a sec, shall we?"
"Potter, This whole exercise will lead you absolutely nowhere!. Why don't you quit, while you are still ahead, and go search for a far more appropriate recipient to your... advances?"
The boy proceeded to ignore him regally. Wild dark head turned to the side as it's owner studied him thoughtfully through those terrifyingly intense emerald eyes.
"You could sit, you know?. The couch won't bite you, Severus!"
Black eyes followed the minute motion of the brat's head towards the sofa, and he rubbed the long bridge of his own nose in disturbed agitation. He did not want to sit there!. He did not want to do anything that might prolong this uncomfortable exchange!.
"I am tired. I don't see the point in continuing with this discussion!. I want you to... desist... from pursuing this topic!"
The gryffindor sighed, then. The sound heartbroken and wounded. He looked ready to fall apart with his next blink and it was so strange... to be aware that he, himself, had caused that reaction. He'd never had reason to reject sexual advances before. Not ever!.
This felt... horrible!... It felt wrong!. It left him filled, almost to bursting point, with a kind of wretched regret that seemed to have lodged itself inside his throat.
He could not look at the boy in the eye!. He could not move towards that coach either!. He could only remain were he stood: paralyzed, like a statue, and silent, like the grave, while his heart fairly pounded and his breath hitched loudly...
"Do not fret so badly about this, Severus!. I knew you'd balk at first. It's not so unexpected to hear you tell me to go get lost in some jungle, far, far away!.
What surprises me is the lack of glee that you are showing. I was expecting... viciousness, really. You have me at your mercy here!. I... I've come begging for attention and you could have been... truly savage!"
Black eyes widened with a new and horrified understanding.
"You haven't had enough humiliation?. Is that what this is about?. Do you enjoy being... vituperated, Potter?. Are you some kind of... sexual masochist?”
The boy laughed. Bitter notes that were not even half amused spilled forth, from within the dancing fire.
"Vituperated?... What a strange word to use in a sexual context, Severus!. No. I do not enjoy being treated harshly by my partners. Nor do I usually treat them with anything other than... passionate enthusiasm, in case that you were wondering!.
I'm only saying that you looked wretched there for a second. Truly saddened. And I couldn't understand why hurting my feelings in this matter would affect you so much. Not unless you care about me, in some small way!"
He was shocked at the auror's doggedness.
"Maybe I've suffered enough rejection myself not to take the matter lightly, Mr. Potter. It doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with my... feelings. Or lack of them, towards you!"
A chuckle reached him then. It was a low and gentle sound. Almost too soft.
"I knew there was compassion inside you, somewhere!. I'm just surprised to have encountered it this early on!"
He sat down then. The motion jerky and, in a way, almost defeated. His stiffened frame perched delicately on the very corner of the messy couch, and he directed an absolutely mystified look towards the fireplace.
"I can't decide if you are having me on, or your skin is really thicker than a rhino's!"
A smile curved those soft lips.
"I'm trying not to spook you!. I've rushed this so badly... Haven't I?. I was trying for suave, you see?.
I wanted it to be slow and courteous and kind of... old fashioned, you know?. I was trying to be a gentleman!. But... You don't get my subtle moves very well, and I...
I seem to lose my plot and panic too much to keep to the plan, so... we'll have to deal with things as they are!"
Startled dark eyes zeroed on the boy's.
"Are you implying that you!... You were planning to seduce... ME?" He knew that his voice sounded unusually harsh, but the sheer incredulity that was rushing through his veins made it impossible for him to curtail the strength of his reactions!.
"You took me to that... detestable flat of yours, on purpose?. What were you thinking, Potter?. That I'd take one single look at that distasteful little sex-nest of yours and spread my legs for your enjoyment, with eager enthusiasm?. I am not a slut!”
He literally growled those words. He was so offended that his hands curled into a pair of truly impressive white-knuckled fists!. He was shaking with rage from head to toes!. He could have punched the living daylights out of the little bastard, if he'd been actually in the room!.
Potter looked ready to scream. His eyes shone fiercely enough to burn the flames themselves. His strong jaw was gritted with anger.
"Don't be ridiculous, Severus!. You were never meant to know that the place even existed!. You were meant to come here: to Hogwarts, from the very beginning!. This is were we actually brought you!. You were recovering upstairs, in the infirmary, when that vow wrecked it all!.
Once that shield on your arm proved to be adversely affected by magic, it became clear to us that you could not be brought back here. I had no other option but to arrange for you to go there!. How do you think I felt, Eh?.
I spent YEARS setting your old chambers back to rights!. I was aiming to impress you with my
thoughtfulness, for Godric's sake!. Everything was going to be absolutely bloody perfect!, and then...
Gosh!... NOTHING went as planned!. I miscalculated the effects of the Felix Felicis!. Then, I went ahead and took advantage of it, anyway, instead of doing the right thing and... confessing on the spot!.
I bought myself some time, under the disguise of that stupid oath, while telling myself all along that you'd settle once you realized that I truly meant you no harm!.
Only... You fought me at every turn, and I reacted like even more of a berk!.
I wanted to look suave!. To... court you!. And ended up giving you the impression that I'm some sort of... heartless Casanova, instead!"
He was so flummoxed that he could not even blink!. A Thunder-like roar had assaulted his ears, making him feel dizzy with discomfort.
His blood pounded in his veins and his lungs froze. He sat there: paralyzed. Mind abuzz with the increasingly louder echo of those words that he'd never expected to hear from this source. Or from any source, at all!. Not really.
He could not begin to unravel his own reaction to this... utterly bizarre development!.
"Court?..." That one term left his lips in a choked little whisper. He could not bring himself to believe that he'd heard it correctly!. It could not be!...
"Did you just say that you wanted to... court me, Potter?. As in... Romantic Courtship?... The kind that ends in MARRIAGE?"
Potter didn't even flinch at his incredulous hiss!. Those green eyes were calm and certain: they were glittering with the kind of conviction that could move entire mountains!.
The boy was was smiling gently. Lovingly. AT HIM!.
And his voice, when he finally spoke, was deep and assured. Sincere!... It proceeded to pronounce the most bizarre statement of them all, in a soft and wishful whisper:
"I am in love with you, Severus!. IN LOVE!. Of course I'd marry you, right now, if I thought you'd care to have me...”
TBC...