snarrymod (snarrymod) wrote in snarry_games, @ 2006-05-02 12:02:00 |
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Original poster: snarrymod
Title: Say it Properly
Author: Majenta (mana_sama)
Prompt: Team Angst, Last Dance
Warnings: Warnings/Ratings/Kinks Pop up
Length: 4,471 words
Disclaimer: Not my characters, and so on.
Author's Note: I usually don't write Snape this muted, but I'm writing him as if he'd just spent about half a year in Azkaban, so bear with me if he seems a bit quiet or non-confrontational. Thanks =)
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Summary: His name finally cleared, Snape returns to Spinner's End following the aftermath of the war. An unexpected visit leads him to believe that his life may not be quite as empty as he had thought.
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The door was limp on its hinges when he'd first returned, half-buried in the onset of evening. The door unlocked, the knob loose in its holder. Snape let out his breath and tapped it once with his wand, forcing the screws back into place. Beyond that, the house was deadly still and a tattered mess of dust and papers.
The Ministry had been through at least more than once. His things were scattered two and fro, old books torn through their fragile spines and now clotted upon the floor. He lit candles and brushed away the dust upon the table to make room for them. He opened the windows to drive out the unused smell of the place. Over a year since he'd been home. If this was home.
The days following initiated the slow process of cleaning out the house, repairing what he could, which wasn't much. He tied his hair at the nape of his neck and rolled his sleeves up around his sharp elbows to crawl over the ruined staircase and the beneath the overturned bookshelves. The books he organized in piles beside the hearth, which he didn't dare light until the room was clear. The fading summer heat was enough to warm the place during the day and it lingered a few hours into evening before dissolving into a quiet chill. He put on a cloak, slept on the sofa. Then, everything grew cold. The town grew silent and stayed silent throughout the night. His eyes wide and unfrightened traced the ceiling and the pale light of lamps. His shoes were paired up beside the couch, one small bit of order.
The first week brought no callers. He drifted into town with an old basket over one arm to carry his groceries in. The kitchen was all but useless and still he cleared away the cobwebs and started a pot of soup on the stove, adding this and that throughout the days on low heat. The muggle stove. He ate in silence and ate perhaps only two meals a day. Behind the house, there was an overgrown yard, pail and washboard. He washed his clothes there, by hand, and sometimes he even counted his breaths as they went by. One at a time.
He was not expecting company.
*~*~*
"This place was hard to find, you know."
Snape's very first impression of Harry upon his doorstep was a brief but blinding memory. That dark hair upon his pillow, a candle flickering out but still lighting the wet of his eyes. How long ago had that been? A thousand years ago.
The street beyond him was scattered with puddles from the last night's rain, all mirroring the sky at once. Eyes looking up. Snape gripped the doorknob, leaned on it. "I know."
Now, he thought, we'll stare each other down. But Harry looked away, squinting into a sun that had already vanished behind the mill tower and a bank of grey clouds. His shoulders sagged on his frame, allowing him to bury his hands, if possible, even deeper into his pockets. The frayed jeans, the old jacket; he didn't look especially well or different. Only tired.
Snape had never once thought about seeing him again. With Harry suddenly before him, he felt surprisingly little.
"I don't seem to recall giving out my address."
"Yeah. The Ministry didn't really want to give it to me either. Don't know why."
Harry began to wipe his feet on the ancient doormat, as though he'd already been invited inside. Snape's eyes lingered on his collarbone, exposed just above the collar of his t-shirt. That really was a lifetime ago. He felt something now, an uneasiness in the pit of his stomach, but he was able to cleanly push it away. He stiffened when Harry took another step forward. Harry sighed.
"Can I come in?"
Snape's eyes narrowed and he resisted the temptation to look behind him and assess the mess of the place. It felt too private to be showing off the remains of his old house like this. A year ago, he would have slammed the door in Harry's face. He would have thought of something finishing to say. "I wasn't exactly expecting company, Potter."
Harry leaned up on his toes to look over Snape's shoulder. "I don't mind."
"You don't, do you?"
Harry met his eyes then for the first time, but only briefly. Snape relented and stepped aside, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. Harry crossed the threshold, bringing with him the scent of the rain, the acrid smell of the old river.
Snape shut the door behind them.
*~*~*
Good or bad, it is never easy to look back. The first time you make love to someone, you expect the memory to endure, effortlessly. Snape knew that if he put it in the Pensieve, it would all be there, all the details he had washed away. For the life of him, now, he could not remember exactly who had made the first sudden move. It was ages ago. Harry in uniform. Potter, then. Potter with his Gryffindor tie half undone about his neck. So the little details remained, then, but not the whole picture.
It blended well with all the sticky afternoons that followed and the endless testy fights, whispered words. Insults shot out between clenched teeth. Harry loved to fight back with words but he was never very good at it. He fumbled with words, a clumsy virgin lover.
It seemed, in retrospect, peaceful. Compared to what had followed, the dim light through those classroom windows seemed too bright to bear, even in memory. Harry completed that picture, somehow. Awkward and mulish. Wiping a white bead of come from his lower lip. That flush had made him healthy, not at all the way he looked now.
He sat stiffly on the sagging sofa, hands still in his pockets, and Snape went wordlessly into the kitchen, striking the teakettle with the tip of his wand. Though a drink would have been better, not that it mattered. He was no mess of nerves. He unfastened the lid of his tea canister and lumped two heaping tablespoons into the old pot. He rested his hands upon the counter edge and gazed out into the wet garden.
"So this is your house," Harry said mildly, without judgment.
Was. Is. Was.
"I haven't got any sugar or any such nonsense."
"Just milk is fine."
"I only have cream."
"Cream is fine." He leaned forward from where he sat and looked at Snape's precarious stacks of books. Snape watched him from the doorway, drying his hands upon the tea towel. "I would prefer if you didn't touch anything."
"I didn't."
The water boiled; Snape poured it. He returned, then, to the window. It looked as though it might rain again. He sighed, reluctant to bring the clothes in with Potter peeking over his shoulder. It was humbling enough as it was.
He swirled the pot around, poured two cups, added the cream. Harry took hold of his saucer very delicately, his eyes narrowing upon it. He looked briefly into the empty hearth, probably thinking of the chill, but said nothing of it. Snape took a fortifying, scalding drink of tea. The burn of it numbed his tongue and he set the cup heavily back into its saucer, not spilling a drop.
"So, I suppose you were in the neighborhood."
Harry sighed again. Outside, a few raindrops dashed themselves across the window and the light through the curtains grew distant.
He was much too tired to play games with words, or any games at all. He saw nothing when he looked about his tiny living room but how much work there was left to be done to the place. He surprised even himself in finding Harry's visit more of an inconvenience than anything else.
War had taken the fire right out of him.
"I was just, you know, wondering how you were doing," Harry said at last. Snape stared at him out the corner of one eye, wondering why he had invited him in, wondering why he had sat him down and made him tea. Wondering whether or not he should build a fire.
Harry's eyes wandered again over the tattered room and, for once, he did not state the obvious. The Ministry really had done a number on the place. A sad sight to come home to. "You look like you're pretty busy."
"I am."
"Do you need any help?"
Snape set his teacup impatiently down, wiping his fingers on his robes. "No, I do not need any help."
Harry was looking around for somewhere to set his cup down and finally settled on the bit of floor at the base of the couch, beside his old sneakers. He cupped his hands over his knees, leaning forward to look Snape in the eye. His manner was neither hostile nor aggressive. He looked, actually, alarmingly calmed. His glasses slid down the bridge of his nose and Snape thought briefly of how he used to pull them from Harry's face, fold them gently, and kiss him. It seemed a different mouth now altogether. And yet the same.
"Look, I really did want to see you. You have a lot of work to do, so why don't you let me help a bit?"
"Is that why you came here? To see if I needed any help?" Again, his tone was not anything like it had been. He was tired from all the long nights. Harry's company was no more startling to him than waking each morning and finding himself still in one piece, and breathing.
"Maybe." Harry shrugged. "But it doesn't really matter, does it? I'm glad to see you're doing okay. I tried to see you at the Ministry but they wouldn't let me." His eyes were serious, their shadowed green seeming out of place in his awkward face, and behind those ridiculous glasses.
Snape had spent perhaps a great deal too much time in Harry's company in the last few months of the war. Why, then, did seeing him now make him think of Harry's body stretched out beneath his own, his soft cry? It wasn't as though he desired him. Those weeks two springs ago had not been reawakened when they huddled in the dark of battle, knees bloodied, side-by-side to keep from freezing to death.
It was as though that schoolboy Harry had walked out of memory and into his little house, leaving the war for another day. Still, Snape felt very little. "I wouldn't know what chore to give you."
Harry smiled. "Don't trust me to organize your books, huh?"
"I dare say I do not."
Outside, low thunder sounded a mile or so away and the rain came down in earnest, shattering the silence of the evening. Without being asked, or invited, Harry stood and shut the open window to keep the rain from coming in. His clothes hung off his new thinness in a way that was not unattractive. He moved with the confidence of an adult. Snape rose and removed an open box from the windowsill, setting it on the floor. "You can start in the kitchen."
Harry's grin widened but did not spread to his eyes. "Are you sure you don't want some help with the stairs?"
So while it rained, they went to work. The stairs, a project Snape had long ignored, were a painful mess to sort out and soon Harry was covered in dust, crawling about on his hands and knees to find the shattered pieces of wood that made up the steps, his wand half-mending them. They spoke very little above a few instructions and questions, but Snape watched him all the same, wondering what he expected to see. A change for the better, a change for the worse. Too tired to pry into Harry's thoughts, and without real wish to see him, he let the evening drag on into the coming dark, a memory here and there to split the air.
*~*~*
"I wasn't planning on company for dinner."
"I don't mean to trouble you or anything."
He wanted to say: you are troubling me. He did not. "I'll see what I can do. Sit down."
"They look a lot better now, the stairs I mean."
"Yes, I know what you mean."
Snape began to heat up his stew, fishing around for a second bowl (he'd thought that all but one were broken). Harry's eyes lingered on him.
"I never found out how long you were in Azkaban."
"Six months." Snape dipped his finger into the stew to test it. Still cold. Harry stiffened in his seat, his face darkening. "It was six months all together. Five before the trial and one after."
"I testified in your defense, you know."
Yes, Snape had known this. He had been allowed in court for one day, that was all, but his complete trial had lasted much longer. He had heard Harry would testify for him, though he never imagined it would do him so much credit. "Yes, well forgive me for not sending you a thank-you note."
There had been three suicide attempts and, obviously, none had been successful. Snape had been too worn out on the idea to try anything once he got home. It had been enough work to make it this far.
Snape ladled out stew for both of them; his he already knew he would hardly touch. His stomach clenched in around itself and still he let the visit go on. He did not think on it. "I find it hard to believe that with all of your magnificent influence you couldn't pull enough strings to see me, if you say that's what you wanted."
Quiet voice, "That's not fair."
He watched Harry's hands, watched him stir his soup about and lean on one fist. Coming to the end of Harry's sixth year, Snape's final year at Hogwarts, he had been in love with this boy. He of course had never and would never tell him, but the thought of it now was shocking nonetheless.
In love.
"Harry, what are you doing here, really?" Harry, not Potter.
He looked up. "I wasn't lying. I really did want to see you."
An array of comebacks ran through his mind. He could say, perhaps: well wasn't it gracious of you to leave me in that shit hole to die and come now, now when it was most convenient for you. If you expect me to ask you for forgiveness now then you underestimated me.
But he was tired of saying all those things. "Reminiscing, were you?"
"Yeah, I guess I was." Pause. "I liked being your lover."
Snape nearly dropped his spoon, something very much like regret coiling itself around his insides. Cold and unyielding. "Did you now?"
"It's weird to think about that now, isn't it?"
"As you say."
"Do you ever miss me?" Tentative.
This startled him most of all, almost startled him into telling the truth, but at last he thought of something else to say. "I don't think you really expect me to answer that."
"No," Harry laughed. "It was a stupid question anyway."
The rain continued on beyond the dark windows. Harry ate in silence and Snape picked at his food.
"Do you have another lesson after this?" Breathless, unfastening his belt. Snape's first reply was crushed out in his hot-mouthed kiss.
"Potter, what about 'no' do you not understand? I have second-years coming in here in less than five minutes. Get off my desk this instant."
His crooked grin, his blush. "You know it'll take me less than two minutes."
Harry was speaking.
"I beg your pardon?"
Harry shook his head, laughed. "Do you want me to go or something?"
Silence.
"You've . . ." he ran a hand back through his hair. "You've really changed a lot."
"I suppose you're expecting biting remarks, are you? I'm very tired, Potter, and you've come at a very bad time."
"I'm not just trying to get a rise out of you."
"Then to what, pray tell me, do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"
Harry's hand crept across the table. His movements were almost imperceptible. His fingers closed over Snape's. "Does it matter that much?" He kept his eyes turned away.
*~*~*
No, it didn't really matter.
Like many things, their time has lovers had began in the midst of a fight. Anger and lust always seemed such close companions. That last year, Snape's mind had been always elsewhere, with Dumbledore more than anything else. With the ache in his left arm. He took Harry hard and willingly. The affair had lasted the rest of the year, for the most part. A startling opposite from the vapid and wishful simplicity of his relationship with Ginny Weasley. He was in Snape's office between classes and after meals, pulling his clothes loose to let him in. Snape had probably needed it more than him and he had regretted its end, when it when it was over.
But so many things had ended along with it. It seemed, then, so inconsequential.
He had to give Harry some measure of credit for pulling himself together enough to trust him, not again but for the first time, in the dark months leading up to Voldemort's unspectacular fall. All the threats and the hateful words had come first, and the lame fight and struggle. They did not kiss; they didn't even fuck. They never said a word about it.
Harry slid his hand beneath Snape's, testing his palm with fingertips slightly cool and dry.
"I hope you didn't come here to thank me," Snape murmured at last.
"No."
"And I sincerely hope you also do not want me to ask you for forgiveness."
"No. It doesn't matter anymore."
The thunder had moved away, distant across the town, but the rain remained. Snape listened to the scrape of Harry's chair as he pushed it back and waited, eyes upon his folded hands, for a move to be made. Harry put his hand on Snape's arm, rested his chin upon his shoulder. Snape felt the warm push of his breath against his cheek.
Such a strange practice, Occlumency. He could not even find himself now in all his pale, guarded thoughts. He'd become a picture slightly out of focus. He shut his eyes when Harry pressed a kiss to his ear, drawing in breath. Then, a kiss on the mouth.
*~*~*
The bed was covered in dust. He hadn't used it once since he'd returned. They found their way upstairs, all the same, and braved the steps they spent the evening fixing. Harry's ease at kissing him now told Snape he'd been with others over the past year. Harry was quick at getting his clothes off and attentive with his mouth. The bed was littered with trash and he swept the old blanket off. The mattress creaked beneath Harry's knees when he moved onto it, pulling his shirt off over his head. Snape was patient; he didn't used to be.
He was surprised at how good Harry looked. Surprised again at how much he wanted him. War should have mattered more than just this. Back at where they started. He kneaded his hand into Harry's mess of hair and tugged him down, mouth open, for a kiss. The bed creaked again as they shifted and in the center of the sagging mattress, they collected side by side and pressed together. Rain in the spine of a leaf. Snape broke out of their kiss to sneeze the dust out of his nose and Harry let out a breathy laugh.
It was neither fast nor slow. Harry allowed himself to be cradled in the bend of Snape's thin arm as Snape slid a hand deftly between his legs. Eyes rolled up, mouth open. This part could have lasted hours. With Harry's mouth strongly around his cock, Snape at last began to feel warm. The chill of the house, and perhaps even the cell in Azkaban, had never completely left him. Not even in the brightest and most stifling of sunbeams. He found his hands were shaking but his thoughts, hidden in the recesses of his mind, moved more slowly than his body.
Was I honestly in love with you all those months ago? I must have been desperate. I must have had no other choice.
Things are so much simpler now.
Harry's hands came over his own. Whisper, "You're shaking."
Snape turned away.
"You're so thin, Severus."
". . ."
"You're such a cold bastard." Laugh, mirthless. "It's okay . . . Merlin, stop looking away . . . come here . . . It's okay."
"Don't patronize me, Potter."
"It's alright now."
It's alright.
*~*~*
The following morning, the rain had gone. Snape cautiously opened one eye into the offensive, stuffy sunlight and rolled away from the beam. He reached out with one hand and tugged the curtains closed.
Across from where he lay, Harry sat naked on the edge of the bed, slouching, his hands resting on his knees. Snape was startled to see how much he looked a man and not a boy. Well, things did change.
Sometimes for the better.
He raised himself and pressed a kiss to Harry's bare shoulder. "Still here, are you?"
Harry said nothing back, but smiled. He looked down at his hands.
*~*~*
Snape had not been moved to make breakfast since he'd returned. Rather than heating up the festering old stew, he managed to find a few eggs in the back of the ice chest. Still good. He cracked them into a pan and added a few of the vegetables he'd been saving. Beside him on the stove, the teakettle heated an entire pot's worth of water and Harry sat yawning at the table, chin held up by both fists.
Out the kitchen window, Snape could see the clothing he'd never brought in the night before still dripping from the rain. He shook his head, pouring water into the pot. Well, it was good to be distracted. If this was a distraction.
At length, he passed Harry a cup and saucer and then a plate of food, both of which he accepted and still he did not say much. His neck bore the scattered blush of Snape's hard kisses and Snape liked the look of it. He had never dared to mark him before, not when they'd been teacher and student.
"Eat that, Potter, before it gets cold."
"You didn't have to cook for me."
"No, I didn't."
They ate together in what Snape felt was a relatively comfortable silence. He rested his hand on Harry's knee beneath the table. How much the house improved with a little company, and Snape rarely felt that way. Harry drifted into the living room when they were finished, dishes soaking in the sink, and he picked up his old coat from where he had dropped it across the arm of the couch.
"Are you living in London now?"
"What? Oh yeah, yeah I'm living in London." He pulled his coat on, glancing out the window. "I should probably head back now." He turned to Snape again, his jaw set, and said, "It was really good to see you again."
Something distant and yet so heavy sank in the pit of Snape's stomach, though his face registered no change, nor his posture. He crossed his arms, leaned against the edge of the wall. When Harry said nothing more, Snape prompted him calmly. "Meaning what exactly?"
Whatever Harry was trying to say, it seemed to be causing him a great deal of anxiety. He dragged his hand back through his hair and sighed. "I know that we probably won't be seeing each other for a while so . . . I wanted to make sure you were okay and everything."
Snape felt as though cold water had been poured down his back. His face still did not change. "Well, how courteous of you."
Harry looked at him warily. "I don't want to fight with you, Severus." That name again. "I do think about you, you know? Merlin, why does this have to be so hard?" This last question he whispered only to himself.
I see.
"I just thought that, I mean . . . I don't know what I thought."
I see now.
"I didn't think you would want to start anything again. I guess some part of me just kept thinking about it."
All of this . . .
"Honestly I thought maybe you weren't even interested anymore. I thought you might even slam the door in my face. But I came anyway. I felt like such a git."
. . . is just closure for you.
"What is it that you want me to say, Potter?"
Harry seemed startled that he'd spoken at all, interrupted his heartfelt confession, no doubt.
"Do you want me to tell you 'all's well' here?'"
He looked ashamed now. And still, Snape thought he looked beautiful. He looked beautiful like that. "I wanted to say goodbye to you properly."
Why don't you say it to me properly, then? Tell me that you can't stand to look at me after everything that's happened. Tell me that you can't bear it.
War certainly did change everyone. They all wanted to put it behind them, after all. Harry too.
"We just have so much rubbish between us." He gazed away, out the window. "I didn't want to remember you like it was during the war."
Snape wondered, as his stomach ached, how long this speech was going to go on. Until Potter was satisfied, probably. Better end it quick, then, and tell him what he wanted to hear. Better end it quick.
"Goodbye then."
It was a startling moment for both of them to realize that things would never be quite alright again. Harry frowned. This was his exit, his escape route. "Goodbye, Professor."
Just as awkwardly as he had arrived and come in, just as softly as he had cradled Snape in his arms and kissed his mouth, he raised one hand as if to wave, smiled, and slid through the front door and out of sight. The house was quiet then and Snape did not bother to watch him from the window.
For a moment he stood perfectly still and perfectly silent in the center of his living room. It looked just as it had before Harry had come, save their teacups from the night before still sitting beside the couch. Snape picked them up, walked slowly into the kitchen, and dumped them into the sink.
With his back to the empty house, he began to wash up.
~ end ~
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