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Missed Opportunities	By : thewandcrafter Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 7901 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all contained within it belong to J.K. Rowling, Warner Brothers, Bloomberg, Scholastic and others, not me. No money is made with this fanfic.

Chapter List
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Missed Opportunities

Chapter One

My life went up and down based on… him. My emotions, I mean. I knew it was… pathetic, but I couldn’t help it.
He didn’t know. At least, I didn’t think he did – not that I was terribly brilliant at hiding it. I never have been able to. He’s always accused me of being a Gryffindor – wearing my heart on my sleeve for all to see, even during the war. He swore it gave others power over me – gave him power over me. The very thought of that made me hard.
But that’s only part of it. If it were only about arousal, I could have gotten around it, you know? Found someone else.
I try to figure out when all of this started, but I always end up in the same absurd place – the first day of the first class, his voice mesmerizing all of us as he talked about ensnaring our senses… and the fiery look in his eyes when he thought I was disrespecting him. Gods, he’s a potent man! I’m not usually drawn to men who exude such power. They intimidate me, if I’m honest with myself, fling me back to Privet Drive, make me nauseous. But he’s different. Maybe it’s because I know him – know that that inside that powerful, potent exterior is nobility and courage. It overwhelms me, when I think about it – which is often.
But, of course, I didn’t know it then. I thought he was a royal arse, bent on torturing me and anyone else whose public façade he could find a crack in. He always did know how to inflict pain.
He wasn’t like that anymore. Not with me. Not with Ron and Hermione and Neville and Luna. Not even with Draco. And of course, not with the faculty… or with most of the remaining members of the Order. He still was a right git with potions students, though, but I understand it better now, the need for attention and precision and seriousness. Potions can be dangerous, after all. Plunking a bunch of eleven-year-old witches and wizards in front of heated cauldrons filled with nettles and dragon’s blood and aconite and who-knows-what is like handing a five-year-old Muggle a chemistry set – a recipe for disaster of potentially fatal proportions. It’s only fear that prevents disaster on a daily basis – that and his own constant attention and swift reflexes that intervene before anyone is seriously hurt when the inevitable occurs. He’s exhausted after every day of teaching, and I understand his short temper, now, in ways I never did before.
He moves through the crowd at the Ministry’s annual fundraiser for Hogwarts with grace and dignity, stopping now and then to take a hand, to smile, even to lean down to kiss some old dowager’s cheek. Where Severus Snape developed social graces, I’ll never know. I guess he had a lot to think about while he was recovering from the snake bite that almost did him in.
Everyone wants a piece of him. They want to talk with the hero, have their picture taken… They want to touch his arm. He even tolerates it when they ask permission to hug him – almost always ask. I can see him stiffen, but he does allow it, and they never notice that he doesn’t hug back. I can see him fight back a startled reaction when someone touches his back or slings an arm across his broad shoulders – not that many can reach that high up – or throw their arms around him without warning. I see his muscles bunch, his arms tense, know he’s fighting the urge to snarl, to draw his wand and hex the lot of them, to leave.
He looks up and I catch his eye. He nods and excuses himself from the current mass of admirers, and makes his way to me, catching two glasses of champagne as a tray passes, held over the head of one of the Ministry’s house elves. He weaves his way gracefully, like a dancer who has memorized the steps and can anticipate the moves of the other dancers, between tables and chairs and sycophants wanting his attention, until he arrives at my side, and hands me a glass, leaning up against the pillar behind which I’ve secluded myself. We touch the rims to each other’s, and lift our glasses in shared amusement. The crystal sings until we quench the sound with our lips, at the same moment.
“I see you’ve found your hiding place,” he comments, continuing to sip the champagne and looking out over the dance floor, never giving it away that there is someone hiding just behind him.
“They don’t much want me, though,” I say, taking the opportunity, while his eyes are turned away, to study his profile, the way his robes flow over him, the elegant, refined way he holds the crystal champagne flute, his long, thin fingers… “They’d much rather dance with you.”
I’d much rather dance with you, I think, and lower my eyes, so that he does not see, and then force myself to meet his gaze.
He looks back at me and raises his eyebrows. “Do you see me dancing?”
I laugh. “Everything you do is a dance, Severus. I’ve come to appreciate how… choreographed… your every move is.”
He frowns at that, as if I’ve said something critical. I look down, unsure how to make it right. He steps back slightly so that he is alongside me, leans in, and his lips, so close I can feel them against my ear, murmur, “And is that how you view our friendship, Mr. Potter? As choreographed? Do you suspect me of manipulation?”
Oh, dear Merlin and all that is in heaven! The man’s voice, the warmth radiating off of him, the magic that rolls over me in powerful waves, and his words have me rock hard, and I’m terrified he knows… or that I want him to know. If he speaks again, I’m going to humiliate myself and come – right here, right now.
My breath catches, and I force a laugh, pulling back enough to slip the flute of sparkling gold between us… mostly to keep myself from leaning forward and latching onto his lips with my own, sucking his lower lip into my mouth, slipping my tongue between his teeth to plunder his mouth… I force myself to inhale and turn my head, then turn back.
“No,” I say sincerely, meeting his eyes. “I don’t suspect you of that, Severus.”
A flash of something crosses his face, and I don’t know whether it’s at my use of his given name, or if it’s at what I’ve said… whether he needed that reassurance, though I hardly think it could signify, other than as a matter of pride… of honor.
Severus Snape is an honorable man.
I didn’t always know that. I, like most of the students – or most of the Gryffindors, at any rate – thought that he was, as Ron would have said, a greasy git. I thought he was sneaky – which he was, because he had to be, and therefore untrustworthy – which he absolutely wasn’t. But I wasn’t to know that, then. No one was.
It was in his memories, though – the ones he gave me the night he died, or nearly so… the night I died, or nearly so… the night Voldemort died. It turns out Severus Snape was a man of honor, of integrity, of great sacrifice… a man of such courage as to make you weep. And it did – after the battle, after the funerals, after the shock of survival wore off, after he recovered and was released from St. Mungo’s, only to face trial… there was only the need to show his true self to the world.
It broke me, watching him, manacled, in front of the Wizengamot. He sat perfectly still, perfectly straight, perfectly calm, though how he could have done so with the Wizengamot thirsting to put him to death is beyond me.
Severus Snape is a man of courage, though, and he did not flinch when Shacklebolt banged the gavel to call the court to order. He did not flinch when the charges were read against him, though he bowed his head when they read the charge of the murder of Albus Dumbledore. He did not flinch when voices raised calling for him to be summarily executed. He breathed.
He sat erect, in a well-tailored black suit, white silk shirt visible at the neck, formal Hogwarts robes over it all. He sat silent and still and watchful, but he sat peacefully, breathing through it all. Once, when someone entered with paperwork, the air that blew in from the corridor moved a strand of hair into his face, and he tossed his head to get it out of his eyes. The movement drew every eye, drew mine, and just for a moment, his eyes met mine and his lips quirked upward in the hint of a smile or a smirk, and I thought his eyes warmed, before his attention was called back to Kingsley.
He was acquitted of all charges, Pensieve memories, Dumbledore’s letter – delivered to the Minister of Magic and several other members of the Wizengamot mere moments after Voldemort’s death, my testimony, and – surprisingly – the testimony of several others, including Neville Longbottom, Minerva McGonagall, and Arthur Weasley – giving all the proof needed that Snape was, in fact, on the side of the Light all along… that he had, in fact, sacrificed his life – not only by his near-death, but throughout his life – to protect me, the Order, the wizarding world, Muggles, the students of Hogwarts, and to help bring down someone that, in his youth, he had seen as a great leader, but soon thereafter came to recognize for the evil that he was.
The Daily Prophet was surprisingly kind to him. And The Quibbler, of course, but the fact that mainstream media suddenly sought out this raven-haired, hawk-nosed, eagle-eyed hero, recognized him as such, and described him in – there’s no other word for it –romantic terms, had the public in tears. I’ll bet he received a thousand marriage proposals in the weeks following the trial. His face graced the cover of Witch Weekly. He won the Best Smile award, which made me laugh and shake my head, because the accompanying photo captured his typical sneer, but described it as “mysterious, alluring, and secretly sexy.”
And he was, damn it! Except the “secretly” part was not so secret after a while.
But before he became Britain’s most eligible bachelor and the toast of all of wizarding Europe, almost overnight after the trial, he came to see me. I’d been home, at Grimmauld Place, setting it to rights, and was covered in dust and dirt, wearing dragon-hide gloves and Bermuda shorts, sweat covering my face and making my t-shirt stick to my chest and back. Kreacher and Winky insisted on helping, but I’d sent them off on errands. I needed the physical workout to keep my mind occupied, and I did battle with the house to fight off my own demons, still plaguing me weeks after the battle. It would take years, but I didn’t know that, then.
The doorbell rang, and I scrambled up from where I’d been wrestling a bit of mouldy wallpaper, impregnated with dark spells, off the library wall. How the books hadn’t turned to mouldy mush, I don’t know. Preservation charm, maybe. In any case, I pushed to my feet with a groan and wiped the sweat off my forehead with my wrist (leaving a smear of dirt and dust that I didn’t know about until after he’d gone), and went to the door.
Grimmauld Place was still Order Headquarters – not that anything felt terribly urgent anymore, what with Voldemort gone and all, but there were still Death Eaters to track down, and… I think we all just needed to be together, from time to time, and the Ministry still felt like enemy territory, despite Kingsley doing his best to chase out negative elements that had permeated its hierarchy. He’d gotten Umbridge out, and held on charges, only the previous week.
I expected someone from the Order, then. And it was, of course. I mean – he was.
I pulled the door open. He had turned to scan the street, still on guard, still alert, still cautious. I realized later that he was still guarding me, still had that protective instinct. He turned back when he heard the door scrape against the threshold. I think my mouth dropped open. I was probably gaping like a fish. I certainly was stunned to see him standing there. The war was over, and he had never liked me to begin with, and there was no need for… for us to have contact with each other, once the trial was over. I thought it likely I’d never see him again, that he’d never want to see me again. It was one of the great bits of unfinished business that had me tossing and turning and falling into tears of guilt and remorse and loss, nighttimes.
He looked me over and a corner of his mouth quirked upward. “Fetching, Potter, as always,” he said, but it lacked its usual sting, for some reason.
I recovered enough to stammer out, “P-Professor! What are you…? I mean… come in!” I stepped back and gestured with one glove-covered hand, but he stayed where he was, on the stoop.
“I can see I’ve arrived in the middle of your… housewifely chores, Potter,” he said, and again, it did not strike me with the intent to cut or wound, but rather as a humorous comment. I wondered if having been in his memories had changed the way I… heard him. “I shall not disturb your cleaning schedule.” He hesitated.
“Did… did you need something?” I asked, and frowned. Of course he didn’t need anything. Not from me, anyway. What could he possibly… oh! “I… I don’t have them anymore. Kingsley… the Wizengamot…”
He frowned. “What are you talking about, boy?”
I flinched at that. He noticed.
“Your memories. That’s what you came for, isn’t it? But I don’t have them anymore.”
He was shaking his head before I finished. “Kingsley returned them to me immediately after the trial. I did not come for that.”
“Why are you here, then?” I asked, bewildered. “I’m sorry – I don’t mean to be rude. Are you sure you won’t come in?”
“Another time, perhaps,” he said. It wasn’t until he left that I realized how… odd that was. “I understand you are not planning to return to school in fall.”
I’m sure my confusion was evident, because he went on. “You have not completed your NEWT-level classes. I think that unwise of you. I came… Professor McGonagall wished me to let you know that… the faculty would welcome you back for your final year – you and your friends.”
“You came to tell me that in person? Besides… what’s the point? I can’t be an Auror. My marks aren’t high enough.”
He looked momentarily confused by that. “I understood you continued in beginning NEWT-level courses your sixth year.”
“Yes, but… that was with Slughorn teaching Potions. I heard you’re going back. I didn’t meet criteria for your NEWT-level class.”
He looked at me steadily for several long moments. “I would like to invite you to… participate in my class, Mr. Potter.”
“Why?” I demanded. My hands had fallen to my sides, and the scrub brush I’d been holding tickled my leg below my shorts.
He looked away for a moment, as if searching the street for threats, but his eyes were unfocused. When he turned back, he searched my eyes, instead, without Legilimancy, and said, “I believe I owe you.”
I frowned, wondering if this was a backhanded way of getting rid of me – he would pay off some debt he believed he owed me, and then could wipe his hands of me. I felt my chest begin to tighten at the thought, and he must have seen something in my eyes, because he added, “I owe you my life… and my freedom.” I knew he did not mean from prison. He meant from Voldemort.
I looked at this man and was overwhelmed, again, by all he had done, all he had given, all he had sacrificed. Every time he had protected me, aided me, without my knowledge, flashed through my mind, and I took a step forward and looked up into those pools of black ink that pass for his eyes, and willed him to read me, though I could feel my eyes fill with tears. “I believe, sir,” I whispered, “that it is I who owe you.”
Something flashed in his eyes at that – surprise… and denial, maybe... something warm, in any case, that made me glad I had said it. He raised a hand to me, though I do not know what he intended to do, because he dropped it, without breaking eye contact, and said, “If you complete my Potions and distinguish yourself on your NEWTs, I shall consider your debt paid.”
I swallowed. My plans – or my lack of plans – were changed in that instant, and possibilities that I thought were closed to me suddenly opened. Not the Auror thing. Even then, I was unsure of that particular path, though it still held some appeal. But… having something defined to do for the ensuing year, rather than knocking about in the empty box that was Grimmauld Place, suddenly made my uncertainties and dread fall away, and I swear, I could have kissed him – or at least kissed his feet – for that, in that moment.
“Thank you, sir,” I whispered, because to attempt any more volume than that would have had me choking out my reply over my tears.
He drew himself up to stand more erectly, nodded sharply, and said, “We will see you September first, then.” He hesitated as if he wanted to say more, but settled for, “Don’t be late.”
He was gone before I nodded my obedience.
I think it took me ten minutes to realize I was standing at the open door, sunshine streaming in, lighting the entrance hall that just a half hour earlier had seemed unremittingly gloomy. I had both a grin and tears on my face, and after I finally shut the door, I spun in a circle and whooped, tossing the brush nearly up to the ceiling of the two-story entrance, caught it, spun again, and turned to dash to the floo to call Ron and Hermione.
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Missed Opportunities