Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Unleashed	By : lordoberon Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 17651 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling does. I make no money in the writing of this fanfiction.

Chapter List
- 12
- 13
- 14
I finally got a fire lit under my arse for this fic again! YAY! Inspiration returns!!

I like this chapter. It moves a bit quickly but it came out of me quite smoothly so...I like it.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

UNLEASHED

by lordoberon

CHAPTER 13

When he woke, daylight streamed through his curtains. Immediately he felt an alien presence in the room, and whipped his wand out from his sleeve. Lupin stood leaning against his door, frowning.

“Get out of my room, dog.”

Lupin didn’t even smile. He said quietly, “We have to do something. The potion did that to you, didn’t it? That potion is one of the most difficult ones to make. I can’t believe we even allowed you to…Severus…you risked your life, already, just by trying to create that potion.”

Severus smiled. “It was not the potion. The dream potion worked perfectly. But the demons found me, and tore me out, and burned me.”

He stood up, and shook himself a little. His body was healed.

“Thank you.”

Lupin shook his head with a rueful smile. “It’s so strange hearing those words coming from your mouth. But I have an idea.”

“What is it?”

“Ron. Hermione. If they can meet us at Grimmauld Place with Harry…perhaps they can jog his memory…can bring him back.”

Immediately, they set about doing it. When Potter heard that they were visiting Grimmauld Place, he frowned.

“Why? That old place? It’s so dusty and gross. I don’t even like it.”

Severus personally agreed. Grimmauld Place, although once home to his friend Regulus Black, was never a place he had been fond of. And Sirius Black had let it go to rot.

“I don’t like it either, but I’m going. Now shut it.”

He grabbed the boy’s arm, and before he could protest a moment more, he Apparated them.

When they reached the familiar large kitchen of Grimmauld, Weasley and Granger were not there yet. Lupin had gone to get them out of Hogwarts, having gotten permission from Minerva, and was presumably still walking them to the Hogwarts gate.

When Potter pulled away from him, a strange look crossed his face: confusion. Bewilderment. He shuddered, and stomped away from Severus. Severus followed.

“Go away!” Potter shouted. He sounded more like the bratty Gryffindor than the proud Slytherin. Had Grimmauld triggered him back to his normal self?

“I won’t,” Severus growled, “You can’t be left alone. Who knows what you would do. Destroying my kitchen…”

Potter whirled to face him. He was at the landing to one of the stairways now. His face was pink with fury.

“You know what?” He bellowed. “I hate you the most!! MOST of all!”

Severus stopped in his tracks. He tried to tell himself that this was not Potter at all, that hearing that did not hurt…but it was like a barb in his chest, sneaking in, hooking itself inside of him, and pulling hard. He felt himself lose breath altogether. But he said nothing and kept his face clear of expression.

Potter went on. “That’s why! Right there! You always try to help, but you stay such a…such a bastard! Everyone else is hurt when I try to get them off my back. Lupin is. I know the rest would be, too. You all think I’m odd, when really this is me. It’s in me. It’s been in me all the while. But you…you never stop. And you don’t get hurt. It’s like you think I’m a part of you just because you’re my Head of House…and you won’t let go of me.”

When Severus said nothing and did nothing in response, Potter whirled back around and ran up the stairs to the top floor. Severus heard a door slam.

He was there still, like a stone, when they found him.

“Professor Snape? Are…Are you alright?”

He turned around, slowly, and saw the familiar bushy head of hair. It was accompanied by a red blot on top of something tall. Then Lupin’s tired face came into view, and he returned to himself.

“The lout went upstairs after having a shouting fit at me. It was a little refreshing, after all the quiet menace he’s shown recently. But he still thinks he’s a Slytherin.”

Weasley blanched, and looked back at Lupin. “So that’s what you meant? He didn’t just forget a bit of himself…he thinks he’s a Slytherin now? Bloody hell!”

His pale face was paler. He looked like he might be ill. Severus grinned. Somehow it felt good to see Weasley and Granger. It felt a little closer to normal, to have these two ridiculous Gryffindor friends of Potter’s around.

Granger was looking at the floor and biting her lip. “Slytherin? But what could do that? Unless he…someone or something altered his memory. Or inserted a false memory. Or…”

Her brain was whirling away. It was impressive, but Severus had no time for this. What if Potter had escaped already?

“Come along then,” he snapped. They followed him up to the top floor, and there, in the very last room, they found Potter.

The boy was lying on a bed, frowning up at the ceiling. It was so horribly unemotional and annoying that Severus wanted to slap him. Slytherin Potter had so much less energy and variety to him. He was so boring. He was absolutely infuriating!

“Harry!”

Granger ran up to the bed and pounced upon her friend, grabbing him up in a tight hug. Seconds later she was flung away, but somewhat gently. Potter growled, “Don’t touch me.”

Weasley, surprisingly enough, was the smarter one. He edged slowly forward, and then held out his hand. “Shake,” he said in a low voice. Severus couldn’t see his expression, but he sounded serious. “Shake my hand. You once refused Malfoy’s hand, and then you got into Gryffindor with me. Come on. Reverse it up.”

Potter laughed, short and mocking. “Don’t be an idiot.” He sat up on the bed, and looked up at them all. “You can try to change me. But I won’t. I know what you’re trying to do; who you think I am. Gryffindor? You’re all delusional. Absolutely mad.”

Lupin heaved a big sigh from behind Severus. “I suppose I was wrong,” he whispered. “Seeing them is not enough.”

“Don’t give up so easily!”

Severus stalked forward and put his wand tip to Weasley’s ear. The redhead glared sideways at him, but didn’t do more than flinch.

“I suppose you are trying to help,” he growled. “Go ahead with…whatever the hell it is you’re doing.”

Severus frowned. “Language, Weasley.”

Then, using Legilimency, he caught the memory of the Sorting from Weasley’s mind. He took it with his wand, copied it, and thrust the copy at Potter’s forehead before he could do anything. At the same time, he pushed at the forefront of Potter’s mind the memory of Lily Evans’s dying scream.

Potter’s mind would not let him in. No, damnit! Severus would not let this go on! No more Slytherin Potter! Even if he had to give up Potter to a horcrux hunt, to Weasley and Granger, to Lupin and so many other people that he envied for how they had Potter’s affection…he would do this!! He would sacrifice it all so that stupid, bloody Harry Potter could be a happy Gryffindor, kill the Dark Lord, and live a happy life where he had nothing to do with Severus after school ended.

With all his anger and yearning fueling him, he pushed the memories past the hard barrier Potter had up, and then with a gasp, fell back. Weasley caught him, and then with a look of horror pushed him away. Severus laughed.

They all looked at Harry. He groaned loudly, and put his face in his hands. “No…no…” He shook his head a little. “No!”

He began to shake his head more. He drew his arms around himself, and rocked back and forth. It would have been a laughable, cliché picture of a troubled teen, if it weren’t the fact that it was Harry Potter, who had every reason to be troubled. Severus was reminded of the brief embrace he’d given Potter when the boy, shaky after crying and putting memories in his Pensieve, had fallen against him.

Suddenly the shaking stopped. Potter’s head snapped up. His eyes were wide. The skin of his face was eerily pale. His hands shook.

Black demons, wailing, fled in smoky forms from his ears and his mouth. He tried to scream, but choked it back. And then he fell back upon the bed, still.

Lupin rushed forward. Severus was already there. He lifted a hand and smacked Potter hard across the face.

“GET UP, YOU!”

Potter continued to lie as still as stone. Severus lifted his hand to slap him again. His heart was thundering in his ears. He hadn’t gone through all of this for Potter to die on him now! He would not allow it!

His hand came down, but another hand stopped it with a firm grasp around his wrist. It shoved him away.

“Geroff me, all of you! Geroff!”

Potter flailed like a mad man, slapping whatever and whoever was closest. Severus stepped back reluctantly as the boy sat up on the bed.

“I’m fine, alright??” He said. “I remember it all. I…I was in the background, or something, watching. I saw you in my dreams – “ he pointed a finger to Severus – “And you, Remus,” he smiled at the werewolf.

“And you.” He stood up, and flung his arms around Weasley and Granger. He didn’t seem to have more words for it, or perhaps he didn’t want to share it with Severus around.

Immediately Severus was ready to go. He wanted so to just go and lie down on his bed and sleep…or to work on one of his potions. With Granger and Weasley here, he did not want to be there. He did not want to see them all get affection from Potter. Everyone but him!

At the same time, he was relieved. As he walked down the stairs and the others followed him, chattering away, he smiled a little to himself.

Bloody Potter. He had to be so damn charming, didn’t he? Severus bit his cheek to stop from smiling more as he heard the boy laughing with Weasley behind him. Granger was whining something as usual, and the boys were laughing at her.

Lupin suddenly caught up with Severus, as they reached the bottom floor once more. He looked at him.

“So? Are you glad he’s back?”

Severus growled in his throat. “Of course not. I wish I could leave him here so I could be in my own home in peace!”

Suddenly a slender hand tugged at his collar. Severus turned slowly. He was caught surprised by the open expression on Potter’s face, and how close the boy was. He looked owlishly at Severus through his glasses, and then stammered, “Thanks.”

A flush rose up his cheeks to his forehead. Severus watched it. He wished he could sweep his fingertips up to follow it…

He turned back around, and said nothing in reply. Potter grumbled about it to his friends, and by the time they reached the kitchen and Severus had whipped up some dinner for them all, he was ready to retire. He took a bowl of dinner when Lupin handed it to him, ate quickly, and then sat in a chair facing the window, away from the happy little group by the table.

Alone again.

Potter had said to him that maybe Severus liked being in his dark little hellholes all alone. He’d wanted to get Severus something for his birthday, as an absurd sort of thanks for all the times Severus had saved him. How ridiculous.

But then why was it making Severus smile? He was smiling far too much today.

He leaned his head back in his chair, and concentrated on the loneliness again. Might as well get used to it. Soon, somehow, he would draw out the demons. Potter would return back to Hogwarts, or not, but would be with his friends either way. He would be relieved and happy. That should be enough for Severus. Severus should not expect anything for himself from life. It had screwed him over so many times. Why expect or hope for anything now?

But against his will, his hearing was drawn back, back to the table behind him. Potter was whispering (in his awful whisper that was always so loud in the classroom):

“Actually, he’s been awfully nice to me lately. Less snarky. Let me have my own room in his house, even. It’s way better than what the Dursleys have for me. And he hated it when I was in the dungeons, so I was surprised that he let me in his house at all. He, um…he’s an odd one. I think he’s hiding more in there than we all see.”

Doubt hung in the silence from his two peers, but Lupin said sagely, “I agree, Harry. Well spotted. There’s a lot more to Severus than meets the eye. Or the ear.”

Potter paused, a meaningful, heavy pause in which Severus wished he could hear what the boy was thinking. “…yeah.”

They moved on to other topics then, and it was only when a loud knock came to the wood of his chair that Severus realized he’d been falling asleep. Not again!

Lupin smiled down at him. “Snoozing, Severus? How unlike you. Well. Lots of work done today. Thank Merlin we have him back. Are you ready to go home? They aren’t, of course, but…we must drag them away from each other.”

Severus turned his head to look. The three Gryffindor youths sat on the same bench at the dinner table, and all three heads were close together. They were speaking quietly to each other, and their hands were clasped as a unit on the table in front of them. They were oblivious to anything else.

But Granger said something then, and Potter lifted his head. He looked straight at Severus. There was so much swimming in those eyes, Severus couldn’t catch it all. He caught something soft like gratefulness, and something intriguing like curiosity. The more he stared, the more he couldn’t stop. Potter had not looked at him like this before. It sent tingles up his arms. He found himself able to hold that gaze as he hadn’t before. He was getting lost in that deep emerald green…

He cleared his throat and looked away. The Lone Man. That was what he was. An island, a rock, like the muggles said. Don’t forget it, Severus, he told himself. The green of the mainland cannot drag you. You are an island.

Yet after the goodbyes, the last sight of hands clasping hands, and Lupin leaving with a deep look that made Severus’s insides turn over…it was hard to forget he was an island, when he pulled Potter into his arms to apparate home.

They arrived once more at the riverside, and Severus began walking home briskly in the cold nighttime.

“Hey, Snape!” Potter called out.

Severus looked back. The boy was several feet behind him, walking slowly. He had his hands in the pockets of his trousers. Even his walk was different from the Slytherin walk he had had. The lion had returned, lazy, ambling, gliding. That quidditch grace that took Severus’s breath away sometimes…

“What?” He shot back.

Potter smirked. “Um. I know you’re tired but.” He jerked his head at the dingy little pub sign. “Drink?”

Severus stopped. He did like the occasional hard muggle drink now and then. But Potter…well, he was seventeen. He could order a drink for himself. Except perhaps he had no muggle ID. Whereas Severus did. But…

“Really?” Severus sighed. “Is that what you really want? I know it isn’t. And you’re not just trying to indulge me. Tell me what you’re trying to wheedle me into.”

He found himself walking back the dark alleyway to where Potter remained standing, though. Potter looked at him and shrugged. “Dunno,” he said, “I miss butterbeer and fire whiskey.”

So comfortable was he, standing next to the real Potter again, that Severus weakened. This was so much more interesting than going to bed. He took a step back the way they had come.

“Fine.” He ducked into another alley to change clothing styles, and then in muggle attire, went into the pub.

He bought them both drinks, and they sat at the bar, silently drinking.

When Severus was nearly done and Potter was still working on his, Potter suddenly swiveled toward Severus from his stool. His knees nearly brushed against Severus.

“Snape.” Potter was unusually quiet. His eyes glittered with something. “I meant it, you know. The thanks. I mean, I know it’s not enough, but – “

“Oh, quit your blabbering. I understand.”

Potter nodded. But he seemed he wasn’t done yet, for suddenly he was going on. “Also, I meant it, the…the interest in your work. In your lab. I’m sorry I blew it away. But what I said, about wanting to watch you at it? I meant it. And I liked your explanations for the potions. I always have. Except that after that first day, it sortof got marred by your treatment of me. But that’s alright! I forgive you now. I mean, after all you’ve done for me. And you keep at it, and you never stop, and…he was right, you know. The other me. Slytherin. You’re the one who doesn’t get shaken when I get…annoying, or what have you. You’re always there. I, I like that, you know. I actually like you.”

Oh, Merlin. Potter was a nervous, rambly drunk? After one drink? What a lightweight. Severus guessed he hadn’t had any muggle drinks before. They were heavier than wizard drinks, and affected the system differently sometimes. Did he have to be stuck on the topic of Severus now? Severus felt a flush rising up in him, and looked away. Potter liked him? Who on earth had bribed him to say that?

He scowled at Potter. “Did Lupin put you up to this?” Soft, sodding ball of fur…

The glitter left those green eyes, and Potter looked down at the bar with a matching scowl. “No.”

Severus couldn’t tell if the scowl meant he were lying or not. He looked at Potter, trying to assess what was going on in there. Why was Potter upset now? What?? Did he expect Severus to say, ‘I like you, too’?

Sodding bloody Merlin’s brains! Severus would do nothing of the sort. Nevertheless, he nudged Potter with his elbow. Potter’s elbow jostled forward and his drink almost spilled. Severus laughed to edge the nervousness in him away.

“What reason would you, or anybody else for that matter, have for liking me?”

The boy was scowling into his drink and not drinking it anymore. He’d better, or Severus wouldn’t have his money’s worth. It wasn’t easy to come by muggle money these days, with all the potions and Death Eater work piling on him.

Finally, as if it took him great effort to do so, Potter slowly lifted his head and looked at Severus. He spoke slowly, too.

“Do I have to have a reason? Aside from your saving my life…again and again…you’re brave. You’re talented. You have a lot of patience, what with teaching kids for so long, of many ages. You’re meticulous. You honor your art and your talent. You’re funny, in a prat sort of fashion. You’re smart. You don’t seem to give up on me…even though you seem like you want to, a lot of the time. So, you’re stubborn, too. And um, you know…you’re not such a bat, fluttering around, when you’re in this.”

He waved a hand at Severus’s muggle clothing. Severus looked away.

Every time he tried to hate Potter, the boy would do something like this. Something nice. At the same time, Severus hated him for being so nice. Why couldn’t he just be a stupid, oblivious dunderhead like Weasley? Or an ungrateful rat like Malfoy? Why did he have to be so sodden charming, and good, and honest, and spill his inner thoughts when he was drunk instead of being a clam like Severus?

And why did he have to say anything about Severus’s looks, when Severus knew he wasn’t, and had never been, anything to look at?

Nearing forty now, he still had the pale pallor that he’d always had, and his once shorter figure had lengthened into an awkward body as a man, with long legs, broad shoulders that did not compliment an otherwise slim frame, and then there was the hair. Damaged from years of potions, it was ever greasy now. Once upon a time, it had some wave to it. When he did get chances to wash it, he would always go back to work, so its silkiness and thickness were wasted.

Not that anyone was looking.

Except apparently a drunken Potter. Well shoot me now, Severus thought. Potter has gone from a bitch Slytherin to a too-nice Gryffindor. Perhaps we should revert him back…all that wanking, he must be mad for some human contact now…perhaps I should get Terry Boot over here from Hogwarts next…

He barked a laugh at himself, and in reply to Potter’s second ramble, said a quick, “Thank you,” twisted in sarcasm.

Potter’s face was flush from the drink. He finished it quickly, and then bolted up to stand. “I’m ready.”

Severus paid, and they left. Potter was silent the entire way home. Thank Merlin. It was bad enough that Potter’s comment had made Severus start thinking. So he was a bat in his robes, but better looking in his muggle clothes? They fit better. So Potter liked the figure they showed off? But no. He was a stupid, lightweight drunk, and he didn’t mean any of it.

Angrier than he’d been since this afternoon, Severus opened the door to his home, barely let Potter in before he shut it, checked the wards, and then stomped upstairs. He slammed his door, and flung himself onto his bed.

He would not think on what Potter had said. He would have a nice, long sleep. Finally!

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Speaking of "finally"...next chapter: a kiss! and Harry and Severus's thoughts on it. Too soon? Perhaps. But it flew out of me! I couldn't delete it! It's yummy.
- 12
- 13
- 14
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Unleashed