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Psychopomp	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 2516 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
- 1-Psychopomp
- 1
Title: Psychopomp

Disclaimer: J. K Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

Pairing: Harry/Snape

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: A bit of angst, AU in that Snape survived

Wordcount: 1800

Summary: Harry never expected to see him staring across the bonfire

Author’s Notes: Another of my Advent fics, this one for sksdwrld, who requested Harry/Snape and gave me the prompt of Krampus makes an appearance. I’ve researched Krampus, but apologize in advance for any mistakes in the story. The title of the story, “Psychopomp,” means a guide to the land of the dead.

Psychopomp

            Harry shivered and shoved his hands into his pockets. He enjoyed the Yule bonfire at Hogwarts, really he did, but every year his hands seemed to grow more sensitive to the cold.

            He wandered slowly among the chattering witches and wizards. Here and there red hair showed up: Weasleys, all of them. Harry smiled at them. He hadn’t become a part of the family by marrying Ginny, after all, but he had fully committed to helping their parents raise the next generation.

            He absently dodged a chase that involved Percy’s daughters, George’s son, and at least two of Bill’s children, and came to a stop away from the fire, staring into the darkness. No one went in the direction of the Forbidden Forest even now, of course. And they tended to stay away from the lake on a snowy night like this, too. The white gleam of Dumbledore’s tomb was as far as most people wanted to venture from the castle.

            Why go further? Harry knew a lot of people would ask. There was the fire here, and roasted meat and apples sparkling with sugar, and laughter and talk, and there would be fireworks later. There were a lot of people here, too, the former students who always came back since the Headmistress had taken to organizing this celebration after the war. Maybe he could find someone who would be willing to talk with the Boy-Who-Lived like an ordinary person, dance with him, flirt with him…

            Harry sighed. He wanted to find someone, yes, but he didn’t want any of these people, even the liveliest and most kind-hearted ones. Which made no sense, but there you were.

            He turned away again, and took a step in the direction of the lake after all. It was perfectly safe, as long as he didn’t stumble into the dark waters. And he could use a holiday from his own thoughts.

            When he reached the shore, he realized the lake was frozen. Harry blinked and shivered, from the revelation more than anything else, casting a Warming Charm on himself as the cold made itself known. He wondered what the giant squid and the other denizens of the lake did in weather like this. Hagrid would probably know.

            This time, he turned his head intending to seek out Hagrid and ask him, but jerked to a halt, staring, as he saw the face that looked before him.

            As tall as Hagrid—no, maybe taller. But the face was downward-swept and shining, and there were horns looming above the brow, and the hair clustered around the face in a shaggy goat’s beard and between the horns was far darker than Hagrid’s. It looked as if it was made of clumps of fur thrown together, in fact. Harry blinked and took a step back.

            “Nice costume,” he managed to say, his voice not shaking because he refused to let it. “I’m sure you’ll win the contest.” He nodded and started to move away.

            The figure stepped in front of him. This time, Harry could see more of the body as the firelight fell across it in thick stripes. Cloven hooves that moved and stamped in the snow with uneasy little steps, as though the figure wanted to intimidate Harry but wasn’t sure if it was succeeding. Harry clenched his hands as he noticed the long whip coiled around one arm, bright-red as holly berries, and the smaller red thong dangling beside it. The thong came from the creature’s mouth. It still took him longer than it should have to realize that it was a tongue.

            “Who are you?” Harry asked quietly. “What are you?”

            Someone else moved beside him. Harry didn’t look around. If it was someone else human, he would welcome the confirmation that he wasn’t mad and seeing apparitions. If it was a companion of the creature, Harry would gain nothing by turning to face it. That would just give this one more room to attack him, with his back turned.

            And if the stranger still was someone in a spectacular costume and the other person was coming to laugh, Harry would be too relieved to care.

            “Krampus,” said a voice next to Harry.

            Harry knew the voice. He swallowed and said, without taking his eyes from the creature named Krampus, “And what does it want, Professor Snape?”

            “It is ridiculous in you to call me Professor, even now,” said the deep, sneering voice that made memories speed through Harry’s head. They weren’t pleasant ones, but they were so vivid that some of the cold fell away.

            “What does it want?” Harry repeated.

            “And equally ridiculous for you to presume that I am the source of all knowledge.”

            Harry smiled. “You knew its name. I thought you might know what it wants.” He gave a darting little step forwards. Krampus didn’t move, and Harry danced back in time to keep from coming into contact with it. A quick glance around revealed that no one else seemed to have noticed. Krampus was probably visible only to him.

            Well, and Snape. Harry would have to think about why later.

            “It is traditionally supposed to punish naughty children,” Snape said quietly. “To carry them off to Hell. To eat them. To drown them.” He moved up, close enough that Harry could see his face from the corner of his eye, and nodded. Harry thought he was indicating the whip around Krampus’s arm. “Perhaps this one came to beat you for all the crimes you have committed and not sufficiently paid for.”

            That finally made Harry relax. He turned to Snape, shaking his head. “I can conceive that it came to punish me,” he said. “But not that I’m a child any longer.”

            Snape turned to face him, too, as though Krampus had ceased to be of any importance. “You are not?” he asked. “Although you would prefer that everything stay the same, that I should still be the same person with the same sources of knowledge, and that you can call me by the same name.”

            Harry blinked. It had been seven years since the war, and he had seen Snape little in all that time, but he’d written to him often. It didn’t matter that his letters often brought curt replies or none. He didn’t really want Snape to help him on cases—except when he paid him for that. He simply told him about changes in the laws that he thought would interest him, and times when people acknowledged Snape as the hero he really should be, and sometimes he told him something new he’d discovered about his mum. It was for self-comfort, really.

            But he’d always called Snape “Professor” when he wrote. He thought it was only courteous, something Snape would expect of him.

            Now he studied those narrowed, staring eyes, and the way that Snape stood with his head slanted downwards, his gaze fixed on Harry’s neck rather than his face.

            “I didn’t know it bothered you,” he said quietly. “Now that I know, I won’t call you that anymore. Sorry, Snape.”

            Snape said nothing. Harry turned around to study Krampus, but it had vanished. Harry shook his head. He doubted he would ever know for sure if it had been someone in a costume or an evil spirit showing up for—God knew what reason.

            “You will not keep that vow,” Snape said abruptly. “In two months’ time I’ll receive another tedious letter from you with the same salutation at the top.”

            Harry flicked a glance at him. “I won’t write to you, either,” he said. He could feel his muscles coiling, something in him that had been relaxed curling up again around an old wound. He had helped Snape survive the bite that should have killed him, returning to the Shack and finding the bezoar Snape had just managed to swallow, but he had known better than to expect gratitude for that. It was just—he would have liked to think they had grown past this, to become something more.

            They hadn’t. Perhaps he had been a fool to try. Perhaps that had been what Krampus was telling him, that evil done once would always linger, and bad feelings were there to lash out like a whip when Harry thought they had gone away.

            He started to walk off.

            Snape’s hand on his arm stopped him. He said nothing, and stood there like a statue, which was irritating, but the very fact that he had reached out was important. Harry stood there, too, until Snape met his eyes, full-on this time.

            “I kept the letters,” Snape said.

            And that was all. That was all he would give, all he’d offer. Harry knew that revealing that much had probably cost him a lot. Harry could tear his arm free and storm off, justified in his dislike, and the wound he had felt reopening in him would open in Snape, too, and they would stand on either side of it as it steadily widened.

            Sometimes Harry got tired of being the bigger person, the better person, reaching out and taking risks.

            Not tonight. He touched Snape’s arm in turn with his free hand, briefly, and said lightly, “Good. I tried as hard as I could to spell everything right.”

            Snape looked at him, and his eyes had no softness in them. It was the fact that he was looking that was the important thing, Harry knew.

            Harry swallowed. Snape was near, and no one else had seen that apparition that he and Harry had. And he was warm. And his hand was still clamped down on Harry’s arm as though to restrain him from some impetuous action, the way he had all through Harry’s youth.

            But no one could restrain Harry from impetuous action when he really wanted to try it, so he said, quietly, “The next time I write, which name should I use at the top?”

            Snape moved closer without noise. “The salutation,” he said, lips barely moving. “It’s called the salutation, Potter.”

            Harry nodded. “I’m grateful for the knowledge, but the question stands.”

            Snape took another step closer, and he was taller than Krampus, and he didn’t need horns to draw attention to his dark eyes, to his long face, to the question he was asking in silence and in dread.

            Harry lifted his head, and answered the question with his lips as Snape answered it with, “Severus.”

            The End.
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Psychopomp