Changes | By : SickPuppy Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 27108 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3 |
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter universe belongs to JK Rowling. I am making no money from this. |
EXTRA DISCLAIMER: All chapter titles are from the song “Down with the Sickness” which is the property of Disturbed.
GENERAL AN: Set during Harry's sixth year, this follows the plot of HBP (book, not film) as closely as possible given what I do to Harry! My only concession to the films is that the students do wear uniform (it comes up later). But otherwise, it's the book all the way.
We veer off canon as Tonks never gets together with Lupin, for reasons which shall become all too clear. SP
Chapter 1 – What's left of my human side
September 16th, 1996. After dark
“RUN! Harry, run! Just … run! NOW!”
Who was that calling him? Harry stumbled blindly through thick mist that fogged his every step. The mist wasn't white, this was black, grey, brown, and all around him. It was thick, like wading through mud, and it twisted into fantastic and terrifying shapes around him as he ran. Feet slipping on leaves and moss, glasses slipping from his nose, wand almost slipping from his sweaty hand, Harry ran. He ran and ran. But still the mist was everywhere – swirling and hiding and coalescing into a shape ... and Harry knew he was doomed.
He had been frightened before; now he was terrified. There was a sourness in his throat that abolished the lingering remnants of the potion he'd drunk before starting this crazy evening. All thought of standing and fighting fled as he turned and sprinted away, hurdling over fallen logs and twisting roots. His desperate gasps filled his ears as he raced away from the deadly thing. But it was coming closer. Even over the sobbing of his own breath, he could hear it. And it was growling, drawn by the chase – blood lust overwhelming it.
A huge body slammed into him and he fell, wet leaves scattered, half covering him. His wand flew from his hand as all air was knocked out of him and he stared desperately around, hoping to see it in the dark. But it was impossible to see through the mist and the muddy gunk smeared across his glasses. All there was was that awful shape growling and snarling close by. Frantically he tried to turn over but a claw raked across his back and he screamed. The thing attacking him howled its pleasure and hit him with a massive paw, making him skid across the slippery ground and land on his injured back. Harry shrieked as mud and debris worked their way into his gashes. But he didn't just lie there. He wormed away, aiming for tangled roots the size and shape of a small prison cell. Maybe that would give him some protection. He rolled over and began clawing his way there, a cry bursting free when he caught his front on a sharp stone.
The shriek made the creature pounce, front paws on either side of his head, and sniff him, eyes gleaming with intent. It knocked him onto his back and he closed his eyes, back arching to be free of the clinging mud. He was covered with green and brown slime. It clung to his skin and hands, covered his face and neck; some even edged into his mouth, but he swiped it away. And still the creature was by him, sniffing past the mud to smell him, his scent, his humanity. It clawed his front, slashing across his top, nearly taking off a nipple. He sobbed and tried to cover himself, pulling in tight, so close to the roots that would have protected him, but it was too late: the animal was there, between his legs and biting.
It was the bite that did it, of course. It was the bite that destroyed his life and altered the course of his future. It was the bite that changed him from a young man into a dark creature. It was the bite that brought him to Severus Snape...
***
In the hospital wing, Harry gave a sobbing moan and opened his eyes. At once the blinding white light stabbed into his eyes and he screwed them up tightly. Even that brief glance had shown him quivering blobs of colours – one mostly pink topped with a wild halo of brown; a second mostly dark blue and topped with fiery orange. The colours were so bright and vivid they burned, and even seemed to bleed into one another. The dark blue, for example, wasn't one colour, but thousands, all shimmering and moving, like seeing heat rising from a road. Everything had been bright and painful … except for one mostly black blob. He reached towards the shape, eyes cracked open the barest trace, and even that made a whimper catch at the back of his throat.
“Close the curtains,” someone called. It was a voice Harry knew he should know, but it sounded odd, almost as though they were both in a tunnel and the voice was echoing off it. He wanted to focus but there was so much noise clamouring for his attention: the rattle of glass against metal, the squeak of rusty bed springs as people shifted, the subtle shushing noise of clothing rubbing. All of it assaulted his ears and he moaned.
“Harry?” that voice was higher pitched than the first one and made his head throb. He held out a hand to push away the shrill noise. “Harry?!”
It rang in his head like glass shattering over and over again, smashing onto a never ending mountain of crystal shards. It throbbed and made him clamp hands over his ears.
He groaned and shrieked as from somewhere came the loud clatter of a bedside table being knocked into and the items all being swept off. He heard the smack of each strange item hitting the stone floor, heard each thing as it rolled across the stone, could even hear the slight friction of the items rocking back and forth as they settled. Even with his ears covered he could still hear a voice apologising profusely and the commotion of too many people who were quieting the clumsy woman and turning back to him.
He saw the black blob come closer until it filled his vision. It was so restful. “Harry?” the voice was pitched low, and the volume was so quiet that Harry was sure no-one else could hear the words. “Do you know what happened to you?”
Suddenly it came back – the frantic dash through the woods; the panic and confusion as the group separated at the dreaded word “Werewolf!” and himself, being told to run. He remembered hitting the ground and being attacked. Now that he acknowledged it, the pain from his wounds flowed through him and he cried out. His chest and back burnt and there was a slow painful throb coming from somewhere far too close to his groin for comfort. With the pain dulling his other senses, he managed to open his eyes fully and look at his body.
His chest (and, he supposed) his back were bandaged, but the wound under the sheets wasn't. There he saw what had been done to him: a large chunk of flesh had been nearly ripped free of his thigh, and it was less than an inch from one of his testicles. A dark brown poison seemed to be surrounding the wound and it was seeping into his body, turning his blood dark and loathsome.
“Oh, Harry!” one of the voices cried and he hissed in pain, his lips curling back as a snarl came easily to him.
That made them all back off, watching him warily. Only the black figure remained close. “You've been bitten, Harry. You're becoming a werewolf.”
Harry knew the voice now – Severus Snape. Trust it to be him to give Harry this piece of news so bluntly. Trust it to be him who said it calmly and quietly as though Harry's entire world hadn't just come crashing down. Snape flicked his wand – Harry was sure he could hear the air moving around the piece of wood – and suddenly the noise level dropped.
Hermione, Harry could recognise the voice and the hand wringing now, was approaching, her eyes reddened with tears that still slid unheeded down her face.
“What happened?” she asked. This time her voice was less painful, “Do you remember?”
He did. How did you forget something like that? But he wasn't going to just blab it out like it was just an event to be discussed. It was his life being destroyed, and that he would keep to himself. Some hurts he would share – those that could be soothed. This hurt, this was too big to ever be healed. So he would hold the trauma of it to himself. That way no one need ever know how poorly he had done – toyed with by a werewolf before being turned into one. He shrugged, eyes distressed, and sent an appeal to Madam Pomfrey.
Harry was grateful when the medi-witch ushered his audience away. He said nothing as they left, eyes fixed on the comforting black lump of Snape, who hadn't retreated. Indeed, he pressed closer and pulled the sheet down, exposing Harry's genitals as though it were no big thing.
Growling, Harry tugged the sheet back in place, mouth snapping at Snape. After a brief moment of tension, Snape's black eyes fixed on Harry and he leaned close, voluminous black robes stroking the boy's bared skin. Quietly he kept looking at the boy until Harry's gaze dropped. As it did, the youngster caught a whiff of Snape's own scent: a heady mix of aromas that brought to mind strange images of a tree in winter, a small uncomfortable room, a flash of painful red light, and finally something that had no picture, but which Harry's mind recognised as Regret. How he saw these things, or felt them, he didn't know, but he knew, somehow without knowing, that this was the essential essence of the man near him. The layers of potions and almost metallic taste of the equipment he ignored. Underneath all of that was the true man. And Harry liked the smell.
Surprised, Harry stopped his noise. Rather than just pull the sheet back, Snape this time explained quietly why he needed to examine the wound and waited until Harry loosened his tight grip on the bedding.
Harry endured the prodding and poking as long as he could then again growled. Snape didn't respond verbally, but nodded to the witch and pulled the covers back over the ruined body. His black eyes were distant as he stared down at the covered form, hands clenched into fists. He looked, Harry realised, as though he were sorry for the younger man. But that couldn't be true, could it? Snape wouldn't ever pity Harry.
After suffering through the examination, Harry suddenly covered his ears and screamed. It was lesson changeover and he could hear the noise of hundreds of feet on stone echoing and reverberating all around him and battering his head.
It was Snape who crouched by him as he made animal noises, more feral than civilised in his distress. It was Snape who cast a spell to stop him hearing anything. And it was Snape who pulled the shaking youngster into his arms and held him as Harry wept for everything he had lost.
***
After a whispered conversation with Dumbledore, Harry had been taken down to the dungeon where the thicker walls and less used area would give him more peace as he began to adapt to his new condition. The transfer had taken place during a lesson, and he had been carried the entire way by a Snape who had seemed inexhaustable. Harry had felt strong enough to walk, and had quietly said so – the first coherent sounds he had made – but Snape had explained that for the safety of all the students, Harry couldn't be allowed loose in the castle yet.
Abruptly switching to a standing pose threatened his equilibrium, and Harry clutched at a tapestry for support as Snape undid a door and picked Harry back up, carrying him over the threshold and into a large, dark airy room. After the painful brightness and noise of the Infirmary, this was wonderful, and Harry staggered to cling to the back of an easy chair once Snape had let him down. Whilst being held, he had been wrapped in a sheet. Now though, it came off him, but he didn't notice as his nose sniffed the air, sampling the aroma and learning all about the room and what had recently happened in it. He swung himself about and sniffed at Snape, tracing the scent that clung so thoroughly to so many items in the space.
Dumbledore sat down after closing and warding the door and gently waved at Harry to suggest he settle too. Harry padded over and sat, pulling the sheet back up to hide the ugly wound on his thigh. A quick glance at Snape reassured him that the one man who hadn't caused him annoyance (except with his necessary examination of the bite) wasn't about to leave.
“I'm sorry this happened, Harry,” Dumbledore began, taking his glasses off and cleaning them, before perching them back on his nose and sighing, “I feel awful. But please believe me that the intelligence I had received made me feel sure that this was worth a risk. It wasn't worth this though. What happened was a travesty and must be a terrible shock to you.”
“Who was it?” Harry asked. That was the only thing he didn't know that did matter – who had done this to him? Everything else, all the changes he knew he was facing and already going through, would just have to be accepted; he would have to find a way to make his peace with them. But his destroyer? No, that he would never make his peace with.
“I'm afraid I don't know. Remus was in another part of the forest, having taken Wolfsbane potion, and knew nothing of the attack until this morning. He has said he is willing to give you some guidance during these first few weeks, as so many things will alter that you may find it difficult to cope.”
Both Dumbledore and Snape had witnessed the way Harry's green eyes had glowed with an animalistic amber light when he had asked about the werewolf. Now the yellow had faded out of them, but there was still the suggestion of the wolf in his posture, and in the curling of his hands into claws.
Snape spoke now. “You can expect your vision, hearing, sense of smell and taste all to enhance. I think you've already had some experience of some of those. And you can expect, before your first full moon, that you will display a number of wolf-like tendencies. However, once you have had your first full moon, you may be able to be amongst others, except for during your change, of course. Some werewolves take several cycles before they settle and can be amongst others.”
“Will I always be able to hear like this?” Harry asked, quirking his head on one side and listening through the ceiling to the padding of feet overhead. “And will I always see like this? It hurts.”
“At some point you will become accustomed to your enhanced senses, and they will no longer cause you such pain,” Dumbledore said, “but, until that time, Professor Snape has kindly offered you the use of his rooms.”
“Why?” Harry's question was blunt. The wolf in him had no patience and longed to be free.
“You will recall that I am the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, and, as such, am uniquely placed to assist you. Too, I am an expert potion maker and can produce the wolfsbane potion. But, mainly, I understand how noisy the world out there is, how invasive. This is a safe haven for you, for as long as you need it.”
“We'll arrange to have the passage to the Shrieking Shack cleared before the next full moon,” Dumbledore said, speaking kindly, but it shocked and distressed Harry.
He had not even considered how his transformation was going to be dealt with, but the older wizard had, and was already plotting to get Harry away when he was most dangerous. Feeling sick, Harry turned eyes that were starting to fill with tears to the black haired man.
“Will it hurt?” he asked in a small voice, hating how childish he sounded, but needing to know what he had in store for the rest of his life.
Snape swallowed before nodding once. He opened his mouth, closed it, sighed, and finally spoke, “And, I'm sorry, Harry, but your first few times have to be without the Wolfsbane. The wolf has to have a chance to emerge before it can settle. That is where Lupin will be able to help you. He can accompany you on your first changes and help you.”
Not seeing anything any more, tears began spilling from Harry's eyes and he reached blindly for Snape. At once the older man was there and holding Harry as the boy sobbed – the awful realisation sinking in.
---
CH1 AN: I hope you like. This is not a quick fix story. There is smut scattered throughout and some serious unpleasantness in the next chapter.
If you spot something that doesn't seem to make sense, please let me know. It may be I've made a mistake. If it isn't a mistake, but plot related, you can have a cookie! SP
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