Fic: In the Beginning - for roozetter Title: In the Beginning Author: Might just be Luna Lovegood Giftee:roozetter Word Count: 3360 Rating: PG-15 Pairing: Snarry Warnings: * It’s a little angsty. Passing mentions of chan.* Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended. Summary: Harry finds Snape de-aged after the war.
In the Beginning
No one knew where the beginning was.
After green ricocheted on red and the world collapsed and had to be rebuilt between funerals and tears and eons of loss (gaping holes where children and parents and lovers should fit), things were found – things like love and generosity and four pairs of Luna’s shoes that had survived the crumbling of a tower – while other things disappeared – like trust and family and the twins’ laughter. George tried, but it sounded thin and hollow by itself. Harry noticed other things, too. Felt the absence of fingers that could stir sin, of a tongue that commanded silence and screams.
And they tried to keep going, despite the ache of empty spaces, empty chairs, holes in conversations. And Harry felt naked without him.
-----
Maybe it began before that.
With angry conversations that were like kicking a wall because the wall just smiled implacably and left you limping for a week.
“His other professors think him bright enough. It’s not as though he lacks incentive.”
And Severus limped out, cursing his infernal luck, to try to make something of the pathetic Savior of the Wizarding World.
So maybe it started then, long hours dueling each other, dodging curses and glares over their wands. With longer nights over books and tea, reviewing theory, which was also like kicking a wall.
Or maybe it started one evening when Snape wasn’t responding and Harry reached out a finger to a black-clad shoulder – one tentative poke that lingered, (accidentally!) slipped down his back, an inch, then two. But a black glare had Harry pulling away like his hand was on fire as a spark of something (surprise?) sizzled down Severus’ spine.
-----
It’s earlier, maybe. Maybe years earlier. Perhaps this is a better beginning.
At least, walking through London - away from his cheap hotel, early evening, in a Muggle t-shirt and black trousers because he’s not sure where he wants to go yet - it’s a much better summer than it would have been if he were still at home, with his parents either shrieking at each other or wrapped in impenetrable silence. Being around them felt like creeping into a dark room without a wand. But now he was here - lights, signs, movement everywhere - in the center of everything, seventeen and free. Only one more year of Hogwarts, far enough away that he wasn’t going to think about it, and a dream Potions internship starting in two weeks.
Snape marveled as he walked the streets of Wizarding London. So little had changed, even from his first visit when he’d been too young to keep up with his mother. He jingled the purse in his pocket, hearing the precious Galleons clink against each other. He wanted, so badly, all the books in Flourish & Blotts, a huge library, like in that Muggle film – what was it? Something about a monster and a lady; he’d forgotten – but he’d need the money to tide him over until he started working. He crossed the street. Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes? This was new... He pulled the door open and was barraged by noise and laughter and jokes jabbering at him.
-----
It may have started soon after Harry mastered Occlumency.
Nothing, nothing could happen until his control was perfect. No stolen kisses, no lingering caresses, no fingers carding through hair, no juvenile rutting. The Dark Lord, Dumbledore. No one could know, so there would be nothing. Nothing. Harry swallowed, nodded his understanding into black depths that saw everything.
“Fine.”
And at first Severus hated himself – hated himself for loving the anticipation, the leap in his stomach as Harry’s mental barriers strengthened. He hated himself for telling himself this was providing the boy with the incentive he so desperately needed, and hated himself for trying to believe his own pathetic excuses. In the end, he hated himself for enjoying it. Hated himself, in the morning gloom, for loving it. For loving him. But who was he kidding – a cranky old lecher, what did he know of love? Nothing.
But he thought he could see it in the shine of Harry’s green eyes.
No. That’s all backwards.
-----
It may have begun soon after Harry was starting to panic.
Ron and Hermione sat him down, served him tea and a sandwich in their cozy (tiny) London flat. Looked at each other and looked at him, and looked back at each other, Hermione looking like she would burst into giggles or tears if she were a lesser woman.
“Mate, we wanted to let you know, before we told anyone else.” He paused, looked at Hermione uncertainly. Panic laced its way through the tea Harry was sipping. Five thousand reasons to freak out mixed with the sugar.
She grinned, and Harry’s heart eased, a little. “We’re getting married!”
Which was, unquestionably, great news. Hermione assured him that it wouldn’t be soon – in six months, or a year, when things had settled down. He’d be the best man.
But this didn’t make things easier. Harry was thrilled – he smiled and congratulated, loved being with them, but the heaviness in his lips made laughing hard; his hip kept feeling the press of ghostly fingers. It was worst in the morning, when Harry felt the contours of another’s skin filling his hollows, but there was nothing but feeble sunlight filtering through the curtains, tracing patterns on his stomach like fingers used to.
Harry was starting to panic because he’d looked everywhere. He’d checked everything, everywhere, with everyone. He’d asked Hermione to show him all the finding charms and spells and rituals that she knew – had done them properly, and nothing came up. Not a trace of him was left. Nothing.
Hermione had given him the name of someone. Someone to talk to, she’d said, if he wanted to. He’d pocketed the paper. It was still in the jeans that lay, worn and wrinkled, on the floor.
And that had been that.
Until Harry was on his way home to his flat and there was that black hair and that step, and Harry was tripping over himself, running, opening his mouth to shout-
Severus whirled at the clomping of his shoes on the pavement. That same scathing glare as always but fewer tired lines around his eyes, and then Harry caught up and he couldn’t breathe, struggled for air in Severus’ wake.
Severus sneered, crossed the street, leaving Harry gaping, standing on the sidewalk, in the way of passersby rushing home from work.
“Excuse me!” In a huff – a stiff man, dark suit, dark briefcase. Harry remembered himself, whispered under his breath, felt his magic wrap around Severus, where it would stay if only he didn’t have all the spells protecting him like later, and he got farther and farther until he was almost lost in the commotion of everywhere, when Harry felt the power settle. No more nothing. This was something. This was Severus.
Harry walked slowly back to his flat, hands buried in his pockets, head down, feeling for where Severus was, loving that he could feel him. Again. Alive. Done worrying, done searching, and maybe there was a chance – some little, far-off chance hidden among the clouds. The thought warmed Harry’s belly as he turned his key, whispered his password, pushed open the door.
But what the hell had happened to Severus? And how was this going to work? Somehow.
He firecalled Hermione and Ron as he tapped Mrs. Weasley’s world-class soup with his wand, heating it up until it steamed and he stared at the swirls in the air.
They didn’t believe him at first. Are you sures, and What ifs, and Reallys, and disbelief written in the creases near Hermione’s mouth and on her forehead, crossed with concern and, maybe, a tiny smidgeon of happiness and relief. Ron made wisecracks. Harry grinned.
It was good, especially the constant hum everywhere inside him, in his back, and fingertips, and in the crease of his elbows, because he knew if he just closed his eyes, he could feel Severus.
-----
Days later, they’re still young and there is a different beginning.
A beginning of fragile trust, and Hermione told Harry to stay away, to give it time – she was dealing with things. She was figuring out how this had happened. And how to fix it.
Harry fidgeted for three days. Twiddled his thumbs, fantasized in the library, fantasized in the kitchen, fantasized in bed and in the shower.
And then Hermione said fine, and said some things like amnesia and anxiety and careful, but everything inside Harry screamed Severus!, and then Harry was standing in the doorway of their tiny kitchen, with the table and the stove and the sink and the refrigerator and a brand-new door in one corner, where Hermione must have created some Wizardspace for Severus to stay.
Severus himself in one of the chairs, Severus in the center, Severus the magnet, tethered to Harry by magic and everything else; and it was the hardest thing, as Severus stared at him, standing awkward and dumb in the doorway, to not soothe away the blankness in those black eyes, not trace his cheeks with lonely fingertips, not find Severus’ tongue with his. Even though he wasn’t Harry’s Severus.
Twenty years younger and less careworn and less domineering and less terrifying but probably terrified, right now. Confused, and lost, and yet, Harry could see in his steely gaze, still just as much of a bastard as ever. Less tired-looking, not the Severus he knew at all, and yet he still wanted – God, so badly.
Instead, Harry sat down in the chair across from him, and clutched at the underside of the table to keep his hands from reaching those shoulders and that head and soothing the tension out of that pale neck his fingers knew so well.
All this was Strictly Forbidden, especially with Hermione sitting in the third seat at the table, saying something Harry was not hearing because he was imagining folding himself up inside Severus, being wrapped in him, tangled and inseparable and perfect.
Severus met his gaze as Harry burned. Was Severus seeing this, too?
And then Hermione was clapping in his face and he jumped.
“Wha?”
And Hermione was giving him a glare that might have been fiercer even than one of Severus’ in his best Potions master form, and she wrapped a hand around his arm and yanked him up, marched him into the other room with an apologetic look at Severus.
The door clicked tight behind them. An ending? No. A beginning, just a little later.
-----
Severus plus twenty and Harry minus one were mixed together, twined and inseparable. Robes first, then jackets and scarves landed in a heap on the floor between kisses and caresses, and soon they were under the huge blanket in Severus’ chambers, whispering please and I need you, and Harry was panting and Severus was – well, not scowling, which was as close as he ever got.
Older Harry, now-Harry, was wondering how that all got lost, how it disappeared, distilled into or out of this strange younger self, and he glanced over at now-Severus, only to see panic staring back at him. Get me out of here now panic, and fuck, Harry berated himself, before he bit his bottom lip and pulled Severus’ arm, and they were out of the Pensieve, sitting in rickety wooden chairs at Hermione and Ron’s kitchen table.
“I’m sorry.” Harry looked down, traced the grain of the table with a fingertip.
“I asked.” So much tension in his voice. Almost the voice Harry loved.
Hermione had thought this would be a good idea. Well, not to show Severus... intimacies. She’d explicitly forbidden that. But to try to find memories that might be familiar, in case they were still there, despite the de-aging.
After the first failures, Hermione had nodded, frowned, said she’d do more research and told them to keep trying. So they had. Nothing.
Maybe not quite nothing.
Maybe Harry was imagining it. He probably was. He was probably just imagining things, dammit. Except. Except it seemed like Severus’ gaze lingered a little longer than it should, like it was just a little heavier, and Harry knew he shouldn’t take advantage, shouldn’t look back, shouldn’t fantasize, especially because this Severus, this younger, confused, scared Severus, wasn’t experienced, wasn’t sure, wasn’t his.
And it bothered Harry, this not-familiarity, this wrongness, but it was still unquestionably Severus.
And it was unquestionably Severus’ tongue ghosting over Harry’s lips in the beginning of something new and old and wonderful, and then it was absolutely Harry’s tongue inside Severus’ mouth, and it wasn’t any different at all until Harry pulled him closer, slid a leg between his, standing there in Hermione and Ron’s kitchen, and Severus pushed back, pushed away.
“I’m sorry.” Harry swallowed, standing there, unable to meet black eyes that surely weren’t looking at him either, suddenly-empty arms dangling at his sides.
There was no reply except the quiet click of a door.
Alone, Harry made himself a cup of tea. Drank it. Left.
-----
At an interstice of a thousand beginnings, Hermione made a late-night firecall.
“Harry! I’ve got it! I’ve figured it out! I talked it over with Severus, and he agrees that it’s possible, under the circumstances!”
“Hernitferl?”
“Oh, for- it’s not that late!”
“Whazzup?”
“We think we know how Severus was de-aged! And how he lost his memory – it all happened at once, Harry! He was taking this Antivenin Blood Replenishing Potion, and do you remember how Lucius’ left arm burnt off, right after Voldemort died? There was an exposé about it in the Prophet. And how Dolohov turned inside out?”
Harry smiled a little, dark smile.
“Yes, well. It’s possible, even likely, that as he died, Voldemort’s magic dissipated along the bond created by the Dark Mark. It could have reacted with the chemicals in the potion, and turned Severus into Severus!”
Harry blinked.
“Though we’re not sure how to get him back... Severus’s working on that. Trying to recreate the potion he might have taken, and he was brilliant at seventeen, but he’s forgotten a lot in twenty years, and-”
“Hermione, come look at this. I have something!”
“Bye, Harry!”
“...Bye.”
-----
“You look so much like James.”
What a conversation killer. Killed before it had begun.
Harry tried to breathe, suspected where this was going. “People tell me I have my mother’s eyes.”
“How could we ever have worked?”
And if one more word slipped out of Severus’ mouth, Harry’s heart was going to slip out of the gash in his chest and end up in a puddle on the floor, and Severus was going to grind his heel into it, until it was a gross mushy stain against the worn blue carpet.
“Did you... love me?”
“Yes.” Whispered and screamed at the same time, and Harry wished he had something to clutch at, something to pull close and squeeze.
“Did I?”
“You... You never said. Not in so many words. But... I think so.”
There was a long silence, where Harry had his hands wrapped around the edges of panic because there was nothing else.
“We’re not getting much closer to a solution.”
Harry nodded. Swallowed. “Hermione said.”
“I’m... sorry.”
Harry nodded.
-----
Hermione was always telling someone something. A week earlier, maybe two – time was so much more fluid when so much had evaporated – she was talking, quietly, with Severus. Walking through Muggle London. Some things needed to be clarified.
“If you’re happy here, you could stay as long as you want. As long as you need.”
Severus nodded. They looked at shop windows. “Was I happy before? With him.”
Hermione shrugged. Sighed. “Probably.”
Severus looked at her. The beginnings of one of his Looks. His, Excuse me, Ms. Granger? Look.
She looked away before she grinned – it was funny, getting that glare from him now. She looked at a window advertisement. Twenty-percent off colored tees! Twenty years off glares! She didn’t want colored tees, or glares. She looked back at him. “You’d been through a lot together.” She smiled, a little. “I can’t see either one of you staying with someone who makes you unhappy.”
They waited for the traffic light to change, then crossed the street.
-----
The most important beginning was definitely unclear. It was somewhere wrapped up in hours of research and brewing, with exchanges of words and Looks. Harry thought he’d found it in the way his lips occasionally stopped aching for their counterparts, in the way he could look into those black eyes and his breath would only hitch a little before he reminded himself to inhale. He’d thought it was an ending. Severus thought the beginning had gotten lost twenty years before (after?), but Hermione suspected they’d stumble upon it eventually.
In the end, she could point to it and say just then, that’s when it happened.
It was the day the potion was done and Severus looked at it, bright and blue and bottled, and after they’d finished celebrating (sedate congratulations, Hermione’s bright eyes) when he asked to be left alone.
Deciding what beginnings will be begun. It’s crazy. Careening and nauseating as possibilities swoop and spin, even though the decision had been made long before the beginning – it’d been there the whole time, deep inside Severus’ gut. He just needed to figure out the reasons behind it. He stayed there, cradling the vial, for a long time.
-----
Somewhere in the middle, Harry hears a knock on his door. He’s trying not to mope, and failing rather spectacularly. He’s painfully good at it. Good at fantasizing about thin lips that he used to kiss into puffyness, good at wondering how the hell he was going to get this new Severus to love him again, because Harry’d never really stopped. And he’s excellent at planning to move, to go do anything but this, but he just keeps sitting in this ratty mauve armchair.
But then the knock comes, and Harry does get up. He sighs first, glares at it, but moves to the door. Tugs it open, because it’s not like there are more than ten people who know where he lives, anyway.
And it’s Severus.
It’s Severus, standing in the doorway, a black silhouette backlit by sodium streetlamps. Harry looks up at him, confused for a minute, about why he’s here, and why he looks a little weird. Harry has his mouth open, and is about to invite him in, when Harry gets it.
Harry is looking up at him.
Not a lot, just a handful of inches, but still. And so he’s just standing there, inside, Severus outside, and Severus breaks through the baffled haze and reaches his hands to Harry’s shoulders, eases him backward, enough for Severus himself to come inside and close the door.
Harry stands there, trying to breathe around the confusion lodged in his throat and the relief in his stomach. One hand on the table for support, the other making little fumbling gestures at his side.
Severus in front of him. He reaches up, brushes a thumb across Harry’s bottom lip. Harry blinks. Severus’ hand falls.
“What happened?”
“We found the right potion.”
“And you’re here?”
“For as long as we can stand each other.”
And for a moment they are frozen, staring at each other, but Harry, or maybe Severus, moves and they are swallowed in each other’s arms – confusion is chased away by the most urgent kisses, sloppy kisses of need and reaquaintance, reveling in the joy of finding lost things.