Haunts and Memories, for aviss Title: Haunts and Memories Author:ships_harry Giftee:aviss Word Count: ~6550 Rating: R Pairing: Severus/Harry, Harry/Ginny (not the focus) Warnings: Definite Deathly Hallows spoilers, and epilogue compliant. Ghost!sex, infidelity (although it’s not the focus of any angst), occasional angst. Disclaimer: These are not my characters; I’m just seeing what I can do with them. Summary: Just because someone is dead doesn’t mean their existence is simple. Severus is trapped, haunting his own deserted corner of a graveyard. Harry discovers that love can be more complicated than he ever imagined.
Hope you like it, Aviss! From your kinks of angst and hate!sex, I chose angst… okay, so that’s mostly in the picture… from your rating of R-NC17 I went with R (which is in the fic)… you said you liked canon-compliant, and I think it does pretty well there… and from your prompt of “memories”, I chose, well… memories :-). I figured the minimal prompt gave me a lot of freedom, so I just ran with it. I hope sleep deprivation hasn’t turned the story to mush.
It was impulse. All of it, even the visit to the graveyard in the first place. I do a lot without thinking first.
The stone looked unfinished, and it seemed as though it should be my job to make it right. One last memory to tie up in loose ends, and this one could be knotted with a single word.
It’d only been a couple of years, and neglect was already fading the impersonal record. So I made a fresh start. I crouched in the wet grass, set my glowing wand tip to the stone, and started carving. It took the better part of an hour, and my wrist was aching by the second letter, but when you’re set on defacing a grave, you have to finish. It’s not polite to leave half a word scratched into a tombstone.
Severus Snape.
Potions Master.
Headmaster of Hogwarts.
Hero.
I know why I did that. What I don’t know is why I went back.
~*v*~
“Mr Potter. I take it this was your doing?” The tall figure is indicating the addition to the flat words inscribed on the stone.
“Shit. You’re a ghost,” I say faintly, no doubt confirming his opinion of me as an utter imbecile.
“Quite.” He’s the same as always, except mostly translucent and a little bit blue. I can see a tree through his face, but that looks like… amusement?
“I thought… I thought you’d gone on. You know. Kings Cross, and all that. And you weren’t there that night, and Remus was. But then, Tonks wasn’t. So-” I break off. I’m babbling.
“There were things I still wanted to see,” he begins, and stops. He looks to one side. “And things I didn’t. Nothing complicated.”
“Something you didn’t want to see. D’you… do you mean my parents? My mum, with my dad?”
His eyes sharpen. “Exactly how much did I give you in those memories?”
“I. Um. A lot, actually. I know you had a thing for my mother.”
“A thing.” He looks a little offended, and his voice is cold. “Yes, naturally, the great love of my adolescence is best described as a thing.”
I’m flustered. That may be an understatement. The biggest unsung hero of the war against Voldemort has come back as a ghost, he fancied my mum, and I’ve just managed to piss him off.
I’m such an idiot.
I can’t bear to stay, so I Disapparate without looking at him.
~*v*~
It eats at me all week. Distracts me during the long training sessions that Kingsley tacked on to the end of my days when he realised that a seventeen year old Auror with no NEWTs probably wasn’t ready to go out in the field. Names aren’t currency at the Ministry anymore. Kingsley Shacklebolt’s only impressed by competence, and I’ve not yet got enough for him.
I’ve never been a coward, though, and running away from Snape like that; not brave. It bothers me.
It’s sunny when I go back, and he’s just edges and shimmer when he slips up out of the stone.
“Mr Potter,” he greets me again. “I thought perhaps you would not return.”
I could imagine he looks relieved. I don’t suppose he gets a lot of visitors.
“I shouldn’t have gone like that.” It’s a sort of apology. I’ve never been good at them. I sent Draco Malfoy an owl the year after it all, letting him know that I didn’t know the spell would flay him open like that. He sent the letter back, on fire, in a containment shield so that it would keep burning. I was actually a little impressed.
“I can hardly demand your attention,” he says, with a little twist to his lips. On any other face it could be described as a smile.
“So,” I start, and then realise I don’t know what to say, so I settle for inane questions. “Why are you haunting the graveyard? Shouldn’t you be where you died?”
“Mr Potter, I daresay that if I knew why I was stuck here, I would be able to leave.” He looks around. “It is peaceful, at least. The scenery is pleasant.”
“It sounds lonely,” I say.
“We are not all dependent on being surrounded by mindless babble, Mr Potter.”
“Could you call me Harry? I feel like I’m back in school. I get enough of that during the day.” Of course, then it’s usually yelled at me by a six-foot-eight blond Auror who tacks phrases like “you pathetic pile of maggot-infested troll shite” on the end of it.
“I must confess to surprise. I would never have imagined you had paid enough attention in school to remember what it was like.”
I’m old enough now to catch that some of his barbs are edged with humour. I grin, and hope I haven’t misjudged the situation.
“Maybe not in your class.”
There’s that twist again. Definitely a smile.
“That, Harry, explains your abysmal grades.”
I snort. “That, and the fact that my house tie was the wrong colour.”
“It is true that red is proven to have a negative effect on concentration, particularly in children.” He’s looking straight at me. This seems a lot like a real conversation. It might even be banter.
I think I like it.
~*v*~
When Ginny asks me, I tell her I was visiting Snape’s grave. She nods – she’s seen some of the memories, and we’ve talked about it since.
“It’s nice that you do,” she says. “Probably not a lot of people go there.”
“No one does,” I say with what must be a little too much conviction, because her eyebrows rise.
“Oh yes? You pick up a bit of omniscience recently?” Her lips are quivering slightly, with that repressed laughter that always makes me want to kiss her, to feel the tremble for myself.
I do, pressing her back against the worn settee, and then pass it off with a laugh of my own. “Nah. It’s just… who would, you know?” It’s a sobering thought, and I lean my head against her shoulder. “I suppose anyone who would have gone to see him is dead, now.”
“Not Malfoy?” She’s surprised, and I feel her breath warm against my forehead as she looks down at me.
“I don’t think he’s in the country all that much. So, no. No one.”
“That’s sad.”
“It’s not like he knows,” I lie. I don’t want to share the ghost with anyone else, not yet. I think this is the first time I’ve lied to her about anything that matters, and it disturbs me that it was so easy. She doesn’t notice anything.
“It’s still sad,” she declares. “There’s always someone around where Fred is buried, and if he was there, he’d know people loved him.”
“Yeah, but…” I trail off. “Who ever loved Snape?”
She slaps my arm, hard enough to hurt, and I jerk it off her thigh with a yelp.
“Harry James bloody Potter, that’s a horrible thing to say about anyone!” Her eyes are flashing, and she’s well on her way to angry.
I hurry to explain. “No, I didn’t mean… fuck’s sake… he was alone all his life, okay? I just wondered.”
She’s still unimpressed. “You said he was close to the Headmaster. Professor Dumbledore obviously cared about him.”
I just nod, and agree. Dumbledore seems to have made a habit of letting people he cared about die, but it’s not something I want to get into with her.
~*v*~
“Why on earth didn’t you tell the girl?” Snape’s voice is coloured with disbelief. It’s a rich sound that sits at odds with his wispy appearance. The effect is disconcerting.
“It just didn’t seem like the right time, back then. Too much, with everyone else.” I’m lying on my back in the grass, staring up at the clouds I can see through his head. It occurs to me that our relative positions are more than a little intimate. It shouldn’t; I’m engaged to be married, and he’s a ghost. I dismiss the thought as irrelevant.
“You don’t think, perhaps, she would appreciate knowing that her future husband spent a little time dead?”
I shrug, a movement that makes the grass tickle my neck. “It doesn’t really matter, now, does it? It got the job done.”
“Good god.” He drifts up a few feet, staring down at me in fascination. “You really don’t care, do you.”
“I care.” I still sometimes wake up from nightmares of the forest. Worse are the dreams of being trapped in an abandoned train station.
“But you’re not angry.” He sounds like he’s trying to figure something out.
“Why would I be angry?” I did what I had to do, and now it’s over.
“Albus essentially wrapped you up like a treat and sent you to your death, Harry. At seventeen.”
“Well, yes.” I’m confused, and I sit up. “But he explained it all.”
Snape comes down to the level of my face, and his expression is intense.
“A reason does not necessarily make a thing right.”
I recall how fiercely he railed at Dumbledore when he learned I would have to die. I don’t think anyone else has ever tried to defend me against the combined might of fate, prophecy, and the Headmaster. It’s an unsettling realisation.
~*v*~
I’ve brought the Pensieve, this time. McGonagall let me keep it; said most of what was in it was about me, so I might as well have it. I don’t know if ghosts can use them, but if he can, I’d like him to see this.
“What’s this in aid of?” He’s still so dignified, but it’s been long enough now that I can tell when he’s curious.
“I got married.” I don’t know why I’m nervous about telling him that. He knew I was engaged, knows I live with Ginny. I refuse to feel guilt over marrying the girl I love.
“Really.” His voice is oddly uninflected. “I should offer you my congratulations, then.”
“I… I thought you might like to see. We would have invited you, if…” I let my voice fade. I’m making a hash of this.
“If I were alive? If I were not chained to this little spot of idyllic real estate?”
“Either,” I say, closing my eyes briefly against his sharp gaze.
“Perhaps if these little meetings weren’t another secret you’re keeping from Miss Weasley? No, I apologise, that should presumably be Mrs Potter, now.” He’s clearly distressed; I don’t think this is just anger.
“We’re thinking about Potter-Weasley, actually,” I mumble miserably. It’s inane, but I don’t know what to say in the face of his confusing emotion.
“Of course you are.” He relents. “Relax, Harry. Show me your wedding day.”
I slip inside the Pensieve, and wait for him. And wait. He doesn’t come, and I realise it’s not going to work. I pull out, swearing and apologising.
He dismisses it with a shrug. “No matter.” He’s disappointed, trying not to show it. I think he would have liked the change in scenery.
“We should try again. Maybe there’s another way.” I know I sound mulish, but I want to share this with him. It’s important.
He looks thoughtful for a moment, brushing his lips with his thumb. “Perhaps… perhaps this. Don’t be alarmed, Harry.”
“Why?” is all I have time for, and then he’s all around me, in me, and it’s cold, sharp, frightening… thrilling. “Oh, God, stop,” I choke out, and the sensation ends just as rapidly as it began. I look at him wide-eyed; he’s staring at the ground, with something like concern on his face.
“What the hell was that?” I ask, wholly unnerved.
“I apologise.” He’s still not looking at me. “I… didn’t know it would be such an intense sensation.”
“It was freezing.” I shiver slightly as a sense memory runs through me.
“We experienced it a little differently, then.”
“You can feel things?” I’m curious, and my alarm ebbs. What, exactly, does a ghost feel when he slips inside another person?
“I can feel that, apparently. Mostly as heat. I haven’t felt heat in this form. I confess I’ve rather missed it.” He sighs, and meets my eyes. “It was wonderful, Harry. Was it so terrible for you?”
It’s my turn to look away. “I didn’t say it was terrible.”
“But, the cold, surely.”
“More like a chill, if I’m honest. Like cold water.” Like cold water on a hot day.
I straighten my spine, call up some of that courage I’m supposed to have. “Come on. Let’s try it again.”
This time, it works.
~*v*~
I think he enjoys the memories. He’s always a little brighter when he pulls himself out of me. I’ve taken to bringing him different scenes, places, a range of experiences.
Once, I spent the afternoon showing him the memory of a film I’d seen the previous week. We spent two hours inside the Pensieve, with him under my skin the whole time. When we were done, he was laughing to himself, quoting lines as he slipped back under the stone. I watched him drift away, and was forced to admit to myself that I’d chosen a film I knew well so that I could instead focus on the sensation of every nerve opening wider, sparking higher, the longer he spent merged with me.
I spend most of my desk hours daydreaming, thinking of what to bring him next. I consider Apparating to strange locations just to have something to show him, even as I turn down Ginny’s suggestions of a holiday because I don’t want to be away too long.
I want to bring him a memory of myself with Ginny, feel him inside me while I’m inside her.
These are things I don’t tell him.
~*v*~
“James.”
I’ve made him unhappy again. “Yes. We named him for my father.”
A moment ago we were standing together, watching me hold my first born son. I didn’t think he would appreciate the actual birth; perhaps that’s only something a father can find wonderful. Terrifying, horrifying, marvellous. Ginny’s blotched and sweaty face, hair sticking to her forehead, squeezing my hand and berating me for not insisting she do it the magical way, and why did she listen to her mother at all, and then our son’s thin wail and her exhausted smile, me loving them both and everything making sense.
That’s a moment that’s not for him, and I don’t think he’d want to see it. It would only serve to drive home to him that he’s excluded from the family.
My son, though. I wanted to show him my son. I held James in my arms, watched him sleep, sang to him, held him up to the empty air and introduced him to the man who would be watching later.
“Severus, this is my son, James. James, meet Severus.”
Severus had wrenched himself out of me as soon as we hit the grass, skimming across the grass in a floating motion he rarely used. Even as a ghost, he prefers to stride, and his clothing billows when there’s no wind.
He speaks from across the field, in a hiss that still makes it to my ears as though he stood next to me. “Congratulations, then. I suppose you’ve confirmed that the time as a corpse didn’t affect your fertility. You’ve a James of your own. Will he be like the last one, do you suppose?”
“Severus, he’s my son!” I don’t know if I’m trying to refute his words, or rebuke him for saying them at all.
“And what kind of father will you be?” He’s in front of me in a heartbeat, staring straight into my eyes. I wonder, if a ghost had a wand, could he perform Legilimency?
I’m crushed. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have shown you.” I wanted to share some of the joy with him, the complete wonder I had felt over the tiny boy in my arms.
“Perhaps what you shouldn’t have done was name him for a sadist.” Severus snarls at me, refusing to back down.
It infuriates me. “Perhaps you should learn to let go of the past! Look at you! You’re dead, for fuck’s sake, haunting a graveyard miles from where you died, and you don’t even know why!”
He goes still. Even his robes stop moving in their unnatural breeze.
“Thank you, Mr Potter, for the reminder.” It’s all he says, and then he’s gone, dropping into the ground so quickly I don’t see him leave.
I feel cold. The fight has taken away my delight in James, left me scooped out and hollow.
~*v*~
I leave him to his bitterness and his own ghosts. Let his memories keep him company, if the past is so much more important than what I bring him.
It’s not hard, with a new baby, to forget about him for a while. James is a fitful sleeper for the first few months of his life, and Ginny and I are exhausted. Our days are leaden, and it’s only a brief respite when her mother, or a brother, drops by to take our child away so that we can both sleep. We tend to spend those days passed out upstairs with the curtains drawn, or on better days, asleep on a cushion of warm air in the back garden.
It’s one of the latter kind, lying in the sun with clouds scudding overhead, that I remember another afternoon spent cloud-gazing.
I remember the note of intensity – the emotion - in Snape’s voice as he asked me questions about my death. His anger on my behalf. I owe him more than abandonment.
~*v*~
“Severus?” I’ve been calling for some time now, and am close to giving up; the sun has gone down, and I’m getting cold. The field is a little more unkempt, his stone more weathered; it all speaks of neglect. I can easily believe that no-one else has come here since I left him that night.
I jump when his voice comes from behind me.
“Do you think, Mr Potter, that when my tombstone eventually crumbles into its constituent molecules, that then I might be allowed to leave this place?”
“Please call me Harry.” He doesn’t react.
“I’ve been wondering if it’s possible for a non-corporeal entity to go mad.” He’s drifting, not walking, and that disturbs me more than I can say.
“In theory,” he continues. “There should be no change to the neural pathways, because the brain no longer technically exists. And yet, Harry, I appear to be capable of learning, and able to remember events that occurred after my death. Both of these depend on physical changes.”
He’s very close now.
“Perhaps sanity, then, is an abstract construct. Maybe madness is in the soul.”
“I…” I don’t know what to say. He’s worrying me.
“I must be mad, Harry, because I’ve spent every day since you left thinking of you. Why would I do that, if my sanity were unblemished?”
I wish I could offer him something similar, but my world has been Ginny and a small red-haired boy. I’ve barely spared him a moment’s thought, wrapped up in my new family, and he’s been trapped in this tiny field. It’s pleasant, but still a cell, and I remember hearing that people can crack, like zoo animals, if they’re in captivity for too long alone.
“Maybe you think about me because you care.” My voice is rough, and I clear my throat with a harsh sound.
“It’s possible,” he says. “If emotion exists in the same place as madness and memory.”
He’s so near to me that if he were alive, I would feel his breath on my skin, and he looks directly at me for the first time tonight.
“You’re not mad,” I whisper.
“Then you’ll come back?” He allows unguarded need to shake his voice. “You won’t leave me alone again like this?”
My eyes burn. Guilt is swelling in my tear ducts.
“No.” It’s barely a sound.
It’s enough. I have to go home, but we both know I’ll come back.
~*v*~
I bring him memories of James’ first steps, me with mashed vegetables in my hair, the day Kingsley promoted me to head of my Auror team. A day spent on a broomstick, invisible over London, flying high to show him the shape of the city from above, dropping low for closer looks. He’s delighted by Kew Gardens, and insists we spend the most time there.
It’s when we’re hovering over the Pagoda, him muttering impatiently about young men and their predilection for phallic objects, wanting to get to the Herbarium, that I understand what it is that makes my stomach feel so light.
I’ve felt this way before. It’s how I feel when I’m with Ginny. I should feel guilty. Instead, I soak up every word he says, laughing at his irritation and promising him that we can spend as long as he likes looking at weird little plants. This isn’t the comforting warmth of my home and family. This is something else, something that skitters along my nerve endings and flays me open.
I don’t understand it, but I can’t imagine giving it up.
I need to tell him.
Our feet hit the grass in the real world again, and I feel him start to leave me.
“Wait, Severus,” I say. “Just… wait.”
“Whatever for?” I hear his voice as clearly as always. “Surely the cold is a less than pleasant sensation, particularly after the sun in the Gardens?”
“No,” I murmur, letting my eyes fall shut. “It’s not cold at all.”
“You’re shivering, Harry.”
I am.
“It’s not from cold,” I say, quietly.
He leaves me in a rush; I’m bereft, suddenly empty. He’s standing with his arms folded, staring intently at me.
“What are you saying, Harry?” His voice is low.
“I…” This is harder than I imagined. The moments with Ginny flowed into each other and it all happened as easily as breathing.
“I care about you.” It’s weak.
“That, Harry, sounds more like prevarication than explanation.”
I wish he’d stop using my name. It makes it hard to think. I want to hear him say it over and over again.
I can’t look at him for this, so I watch the way his robe flows across the grass. “Severus.” I clear my throat. “When we’re in the Pensieve, when you’re under my skin like that, it feels incredible. So intense. I can hardly stand it, but it’s worse when you leave. I don’t want it to stop.”
His voice is cold. “So it’s some sort of addictive experience for you? I will not be used that way, Harry.”
Worry jerks my head up, latches my eyes to his. “That’s not it, not at all. It’s – fuck, it’s fucking love, okay? I think I might love you. No, I know I do, I know what it feels like and this is it.”
“And your wife?” I can’t read his face, and his tone gives nothing away.
“I love her, too. That won’t change.”
“What do you expect from me?” Still unreadable.
“Nothing more. Nothing you wouldn’t give. I… I can’t say I haven’t thought about more. You should know that.” I don’t know if this will wreck everything, but I need to be honest.
“What more can I give you?” His voice is low, and guilt winds through me.
“You’re right. I can’t expect anything. This, already, it’s more than I ever thought possible.” I am flushed with shame and the adrenalin that speeds my heartbeat. I’ve too much power over him to ask for anything. I’ve put pressure on him, when I’m his only source of anything outside his tiny world.
“You misunderstand, Harry.” He’s beside me, and reaches out with chill fingertips to trace the air beside my face. “If I want to give you more… what would you take?”
The racing heartbeat is loud in my ears. “Everything,” I whisper.
“What would you have now?” That voice wraps round me, the promise in it setting me alight in an echo of the way it feels with him under my skin.
I meet his eyes. “Come back inside me. Please-” I’ve barely finished the last syllable when he’s rushing in to the brim, holding nothing back. I suck in a huge mouthful of air; I am dizzy with relief, with desire, with the idea that he is in me so completely.
“Severus, please…”
“Is this what you wanted?” His voice comes from everywhere; he’s making no effort to contain himself.
“Yes,” I hiss.
“Perhaps there can be more,” he says, low and soft, and the intensity increases in a series of points under my skin. I let out a gasping sound, and drop to my knees in the middle of the field. “Apparently so,” he murmurs.
They’re his fingers, I think, those spots of sparks. He’s touching me from the inside. The idea is overwhelming, and I close my eyes to concentrate.
His fingers slide over my back and belly at the same time, press against my lips in a kind of kiss. They skate over a nipple, and I whimper. I hear a laugh, directed to my ear, and he focuses his touch to the hard points on my chest, a maddening concentration of sensation that has me arching my back and pressing up against nothing.
“Severus,” I moan.
“Yes, Harry?” An amused murmur.
“If you don’t stop that, I’m going to come in my trousers.”
“Would that be a problem?” It isn’t surprising that Severus Snape is laughing at me even while he urges me closer to the edge of orgasm.
“Oh…” There’s a hitch in my voice I can’t control. “Please, let me just…”
I fumble with the zipper, yanking the front of my trousers open with shaking fingers as he continues to send teasing sparks and chills through my chest.
“So hasty, Harry,” he says, in a low purr that I feel somewhere lower than my stomach.
“Fuck…” is all I can manage as I grip myself, working my foreskin over the head of my cock, one hand a blur of movement, the other holding tight to the grass behind me.
He laughs again, a delighted sound, and then the sparks are moving from my nipples and pouring up and down my shaft, intensifying at the head, pooling in my balls and lower belly. I throw my head back and howl as I come, streaks on my jacket, my thighs, the last weak spurts dribbling over my fingers when I slump back against the grass.
He’s still inside me, moving slowly now, stroking across my skin in a way that makes me twitch and curl and laugh.
“Is that what you wanted, Harry?” He sounds satisfied. I don’t answer; I’m too boneless to consider talking, but he tweaks at a nipple and I yelp.
“Yes,” I breathe, feeling the surge and ebb of his energy under my skin.
He laughs again; I don’t think I ever believed I would hear Severus like this. As a child, I didn’t think he was even capable of laughter, let alone so much of it.
We curl up under the early evening sky. I complain of the cold grass, and he points out the existence of magic. I lie in a double cocoon, with the warming charm wrapped around me from the outside, and Severus keeping me alive on the inside.
The sun is long gone when he stirs. “You should leave now, Harry. It’s getting late.”
I make a small noise of loss as he disengages, then I’m looking into his eyes as he re-materialises in front of my face.
“Clean yourself up, Harry.” I love it when he says my name.
“Go home to your wife.” I know I should be wracked with guilt over the infidelity. Perhaps that will come later. I’ve found that what I feel for Severus is distinct from what I feel for her, and doesn’t detract from it. If anything, love surrounds itself with more of the same. Still, I share so much with her. There’s one thing I can give him that I’ve never let her see.
“I’ll be back,” I say. “I want to show you the night I died.”
~*v*~
We watch it together, like everything else, and I’m dismayed by how young I look. How afraid. Severus watches without speaking, and I fill the void with awkward narration.
“See, that’s the stone Dumbledore left me, and that’s what I had to say to open it, but I didn’t know until then. It’s a good thing it worked, too.”
“Here’s where he kills me.”
“Wow, I was really skinny then. Good thing those robes showed up, or I would’ve been talking to Dumbledore completely naked. Actually, I’m glad he had robes, too.”
“That thing over there, see? That’s what was left of Voldemort’s soul after all the mess with the Horcruxes.”
“And that’s when I decided to go back. That was pretty scary. Do you want to see all the rest? Voldemort getting killed?”
“No. I think this will suffice.” It’s the first thing he’s said.
We pull out of the Pensieve, and I watch him as he strides back and forth across the field, robes snapping behind him.
I’m still nervous about leaving the silence empty. “I thought, maybe, since I see you as a ghost all the time, it might be fair if you got to see me when I was dead.”
“Fair. Fair. Harry, fairness has nothing to do with any facet of your life, and certainly not your death!” He’s angry again.
I try to placate him. “I know, but it had to be that way, you know?”
“You were a child,” he says, low voiced and furious.
“You were the same age when you joined up with Voldemort!”
“Which is more evidence that it’s too young an age to do anything important!” He announces this with passionate intensity.
I’m bewildered once more by his anger, like the last time we discussed this subject. “I don’t understand. Are you angry with Dumbledore, or me?”
“He should have taken more care with you.”
It hits me, then. This is about both of us. Dumbledore effectively abandoned Severus when he was still at school, and then took him back with contempt. The relationship grew into something strong, something good, but Dumbledore still threw Severus into the teeth of fate when he needed someone to take the blame. I was the boy hero, the favourite, almost until the very last. Then I was a sacrifice, like Severus, like my mother. It seems Severus wanted to protect me from that end.
“It worked out for me,” I say. “You, though. You were alone. Too alone, I think. And that’s what’s not fair.”
He stares at me, nostrils flaring as he breathes heavily – it must be a reflex, because he’s long since left behind the need for air.
“This isn’t about me,” he says.
“The hell it isn’t!” I flare back. “I’ve got everything I need. I won. I’ve got the job I wanted, the family, I’ve got you. What’ve you got, other than the bits I bring you? It’s not okay that you’re stuck here like this, not after everything you did!”
I’m dismayed to hear my voice wavering. “You shouldn’t still be so alone.”
He comes forward and wraps around me, soothing.
“And now you’re comforting me,” I mumble. “You do everything, and you get nothing.”
“Harry,” he says quietly. “I have you. That’s not “nothing”. It’s more than I ever thought possible.”
“It’s not enough,” I protest.
“It will suffice.” His fingers trail through the surface of my skin, leaving chill comfort behind.
“You should at least be able to go places.” My voice is small, childish. He stills.
“Harry, there’s something I haven’t told you.”
“What is it? Have you tried to leave?” I’m eager. “Can you get past the gate, now?”
“That’s not it. It’s probably better to show you; can you stay longer, tonight?”
“I suppose. Ginny thinks I’m working late, and she’ll be asleep by now, anyway.” I’m alive with curiosity. “Can’t you just tell me?”
“Patience, Harry.” He’s laughing at me again. I’m amazed that it ever bothered me. I could listen to him laugh for hours.
We sit on the ground together and wait. His arms are around me, and I stare into the bright light from the Pensieve. We don’t speak; I’m not sure we need to. The crescent moon is rising above the horizon and I’m trying not to nod off on the grass. I’ve warmed it with a spell again, so I’m a little too comfortable to be wide awake. I conjure a candle on the tombstone to have a point of warm light, and he snorts something at me about having a penchant for defacing his grave.
I have fallen asleep, because I wake with a start to the sound of wings. Severus is watching with a wry smile on his face as the bird lands on his tombstone.
“Fawkes?” I look between them with wonder and curiosity.
Severus sighs. “This ridiculous chicken started showing up some time ago, after you left one night. After the Gardens.” The time I told him I loved him. He swipes his hand through Fawkes’ beak, and the bird snaps at him irritably. “He doesn’t leave until morning.”
“Maybe he likes you?” I’m giddy, and my voice is quivering with the need to laugh. This is so surreal. All the times Fawkes could have shown up to help at the end of the war, and I see him in a deserted graveyard in the quiet of night.
“He seems to think he can take me somewhere,” Severus says, scowling at the bird.
“Have you tried? Does it work?” I’m fascinated, and confused; it must be some last magic from Dumbledore, or maybe something from Fawkes himself. He’s always been an enigmatic bird.
“I’ve nowhere to go, Harry.”
“That’s mental! There are all the things I show you; you could see them in person! You could spend as long as you like in all the most boring herb gardens in the world!”
Severus is calm. “I find that what I mostly enjoy is the company.”
“You’re staying because of me?” I’m thrilled. I know I should be horrified. When did I lose my ability to feel guilt?
“It is not quite that simple, Harry.”
“It is, you utter liar. It’s what you just said!” I’m grinning at him, and he’s doing an excellent job of keeping his reaction to just that twitch at the corner of his mouth. “You like me,” I say, jabbing a finger in the vicinity of his chest.
“You have a certain appeal.” He’s so determined to be guarded, even after all this time.
“Appeals to you.”
“Perhaps.” It’s all I’ll get tonight.
~*v*~
I don’t stay late enough to see Fawkes after that, not for several months. I’ve arrived late, excited; I’m a father again, and I’ve left the Pensieve behind.
“I want you to meet him yourself, this time. It might go better person to person. Person to ghost.”
He frowns. “I have no particular desire to meet your little… Sirius, I presume you’ve named this one.”
“You’re not very good at guessing games, you know.” He can’t get to me, not tonight.
“I’m not playing games. It’s late; you might as well go back to your family.” He’s pretending not to be disappointed over the short visit. I can’t leave him hanging like this.
“Severus. I think you’ll like this one. We’ve named him Albus,” I say, watching his face.
“Albus? Good god, do you particularly wish for his school days to be a torment? Albus is a terrible name for a child.” He snorts. “At least, a child born this century.”
“Albus is a brilliant name. It goes well with his second name, too. Severus.”
“What?” He glares at me.
“No, that’s the name. His name. He’s Albus Severus Potter.” I wait.
His lip twitches.
“That’s still a terrible name. Cumbersome.” He’s not meeting my eyes.
“Will you try to see him?
“Wait with me for the damned bird. We’ll see if this works.”
We stand together, waiting for that bright flame to arrive.
~*v*~
There’s something very strange about holding my son out to my other lover in the bedroom I share with my wife. I try not to think too hard about Severus also being dead, and currently inhabiting the body of a phoenix. That Ginny is asleep in the bed next to us, and that I’m keeping quiet so as to not wake her, is an extra complication.
Fawkes’ beak looks sharp next to Al’s fragile skin, and I can’t hear Severus’ voice with him inside the bird, but something in the alien eyes is softer than usual. Less wild.
The phoenix is shuffling, looking restless. I get the feeling he won’t go straight back to the graveyard, and I need to speak to Severus.
I leave my son in his protective bubble next to Ginny’s sleeping form, and take the enormous bird to the back garden.
“Let this work,” I murmur, and lean against Fawkes’ warm feathers. “Severus, come in.”
I feel the cold slide in, and shiver, but his voice is warm around me.
“I’ll concede, Harry, that you have appealing children. Even the oldest seems bearable in his sleep.”
I snort. “Good of you.”
He responds with the laugh that I love.
“What now?” I ask.
“Fawkes has some things to show me.” There’s an undercurrent of excitement in his voice. It sends a frisson of pain through me.
“What happened to having nowhere to go?” I try not to sound petulant.
“Harry.” He moves inside me in ways that make me gasp.
“That’s not fair,” I begin, when I recover my breath. He doesn’t let me finish.
“I’m not leaving you. I’m just… travelling, for a time.”
“How long?” Definitely petulant.
“I don’t know, Harry.” He’s calm under my skin, and his voice washes over me in layers of reassurance. “I’ll come back, though. Of that I can assure you.”
“Will you?” I need him. Ginny is the sweetness in my life, the children are the joy, and he makes my heartbeat stronger and sets my skin alive.
“I’ve a namesake to watch over, do I not? And that other child will need someone to keep an eye on him.”
I laugh, somehow, through the swelling in my throat.
“I’ll miss you.”
“And I you.”
From Severus Snape, that’s the closest to a declaration of love I can imagine. He leaves me, then; streams into Fawkes and takes my control with him. A beak rubs lightly against my cheek, wings stretch, and then he’s in the air. I lift a hand in farewell, and watch the bright spot fade into the distant dark.
“Not over, Severus,” I murmur to myself, and turn back inside. James will be awake soon, and Al will need feeding, then I can crawl back into bed with Ginny and sleep until the light comes back.
~*v*~
Title: Unlikely Trio Artist:ships_harry Giftee:aviss Medium: PS and tablet Rating: G Pairing: Snape/Harry Warnings: DH spoilers, implied (or blatantly obvious) character death - a ghost. Disclaimer: I don't own Snape, Harry, Fawkes, Pensieves, Hogwarts, and I don't have a Potions Master of my own. Summary:Snape and Harry wait with a bucketload - er, Pensieve-ful - of memories.