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Onward into the Breach	By : QueenB Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 8398 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter in anyway, shape or form. The rights of such belong solely to J.K Rowling. I do not make any money or accrue any monetary benefit on this story.

Chapter List
- 14
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- 16
The appearance of Voldemort’s lifeless body produced a sensation, to say the least. The oblivious, like the giants and Acromantulas, continued fighting for several minutes, apparently unaware that their leader was dead. But the Death Eaters who had not managed to fight their way into the castle froze at the sign of his motionless corpse.
Harry had insisted Severus drape himself with the Invisibility Cloak again. The battle was over, as far as Harry was concerned. But he had no wish for any of Voldemort’s followers who might escape to learn that Severus Snape had turned traitor. The man had done his best to protect him. He could do no less than shield him from reprisals, at least for the time being.
Harry stepped forward. He lowered the corpse. “Listen to me. Voldemort is dead. It’s over. Surrender now and you’ll be taken away peacefully. You’ve got nothing more to gain by fighting.”
The sounds of battle died away to an overwhelming stillness. Cloaked figures hidden in bone-white masks fixed their eyes on their fallen leader.
Then pandemonium broke out. The majority of the panicking Death Eaters did not surrender. They tried to run, headed for the school gates, hoping to Disapparate before they could be caught. Most of them were felled by various spells, both from within and without the school.
Harry dropped those who came near, bound those who laid down their wands and surrendered. When members of the Order came out, he told them there were more Death Eaters in a clearing in the forbidden forest, waiting for a Dark Lord who would not be coming.
__________
The Great Hall was crowded to bursting. Harry could not remember seeing so many people in it at once, not even when the foreign students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang had visited. At the sight of him, a loud cry went up – the cheers welling from all sides and smashing into him in a tidal wave of indistinguishable noise.
There was a blur of tears, shouts and congratulations. The weeping faces of the grieving and a list of the fallen assailed Harry: Fred Weasley, killed by Rookwood; Remus Lupin; Nymphadora Tonks and so many more.
He stood over Lupin. In death, the man’s lined face and gray hair gave him a curious dignity. He was nestled next to the body of his wife, their heads tilted towards each other as if they meant to share a final kiss. He thought of their little boy, newly born, who would never know his parents as Harry had never known his. He reached out and clasped Lupin’s hand, already cooling, and turned away.
“Any idea who – ?” He couldn’t finish. The man was dead and his poor wife with him. What did it matter who had killed them?
Arthur Weasley looked uncomfortable, his eyes shifting from Harry’s. “We don’t really know. In the heat of battle, there were spells flying all over the place. We heard Tonks crying, saw her kneeling over the body. Then she was struck – ”
“It was Pettigrew,” George said in a low, flat voice.
“Pettigrew?” Harry whispered.
“He was caught by the Aurors trying to sneak off Hogwarts grounds…” Arthur interjected hastily.
Pettigrew…whom he’d let live in the Malfoy manor. He’d spared that miserable rat and this was the result?
There was a roaring in Harry’s ears. He couldn’t hear what Arthur was saying now; he was overwhelmed with the urge to seek out Wormtail, to choke the very life out of him with his bare hands.
“Harry!” Someone was shaking him by the arm. He blinked and glared at the offending party, meeting the alarmed gaze of Molly Weasley.
“Mrs. Weasley?”
“Harry, did you hear what Arthur said? Pettigrew was caught by Aurors. He’s in Ministry custody. He’s their responsibility now. This isn’t your problem any more.”
“Oh, come off it, mum!” George said, his freckled face turning pale with anger. “You killed Bellatrix Lestrange ‘cuz she was threatening one of your kids. If Harry wants to go after Pettigrew, I say let him!”
“And have him take the law into his own hands? Have the Ministry peg him as the next Dark Lord?” Molly snapped, staring fiercely at him. “It’s one thing to kill in the heat of battle. It’s quite another to do it in cold blood. You don’t want Harry to become a vicious murderer, do you?”
George mumbled something incoherent and stomped off. He looked oddly diminished without his twin and Harry’s rage died, to be replaced by guilty sorrow. If he’d only killed Pettigrew when he had the chance, Remus would be alive today and probably Tonks with him.
Grief and blame were swept aside when Ginny came to the huddled group. She threw her arms around Harry, crying and wetting his robe, and he didn’t have the heart to reject her. He patted her awkwardly on the back, aware that somewhere close by the Slytherin Potions master was watching.
“Harry! I-it’s so awful! Fred is… I can’t believe he’s dead!” Ginny sobbed.
“Neither can I,” he murmured dully.
“Percy told me all about it, how he and Fred had been talking and then a Killing Curse came out of nowhere.” She dissolved into tears again, her face pressed into Harry’s shoulder.
He hugged her tightly. Sorrow was clawing at him. But he couldn’t bring himself to cry. He had to be strong still, play the role of the savior for the grieving around him.
“Harry?”
Hermione sat down at the other side of him. Her face was pale but she had not the grief on it that Ginny did. “I’m glad you’re alright, Harry,” Hermione said. She bent her eyes on the youngest Weasley and reached across his body to touch the girl lightly on the arm.
“Same here, Hermione. Ron,” he nodded to his best friend.
Ron stood beside Hermione, his arm around her shoulder. She didn’t say anything to him, only let his hand grasp hers. Harry thought of that loving kiss the two of them had shared. Even if one or both of them had died, they would have let each other know their true feelings.
He stared down at the crying girl in his arms. Suddenly he knew his affection for her held nothing of what Ron and Hermione shared. Ginny was like family to him – a dearly loved relative but nothing more. If his parents had lived, might he not have had a redheaded little sister just like her? How could he have mistaken this milder emotion for the deep kind of love shared by his two best mates?
The realization struck him hard, wiping out everything else. When Ron took Ginny away, he was almost ashamed of the relief he felt.
Severus was pacing Harry, allowing himself to melt against the wall when Harry was surrounded by his followers and friends, clinging closely to his beloved and squeezing his arm in silence when it was possible. He clenched his fists in frustration when the Weasley chit touched Harry, wishing he dared hit her with a hex. He experienced a profound satisfaction when she was whisked away by her anxious brother.
He wanted to remove the Cloak but was all too aware in what ill favor he was held. Did these people not believe, as Voldemort had, that he was responsible for the death of Albus Dumbledore? If he showed himself now, it was very likely that he’d be struck with multiple Killing Curses before Harry could speak up on his behalf.
Yet he could see the strain lining Harry’s face as one person after another came forward to clasp his hand, to thank him tearfully for bringing down his nemesis. Harry smiled, murmured platitudes, allowed himself to be hugged, but his heart clearly was not in it.
Finally, the Gryffindor slumped down at a seat in the Great Hall. The tables had been drawn up again, used mainly to display the dead and secure the wounded before they could be moved to the Infirmary or St. Mungo’s.
Luna sat beside Harry. Without looking at him, she whispered, “You look like you want to be elsewhere, Harry. You’ve done your part. You don’t need to be here.”
Harry shot her a startled look. Then he nodded. Hearing her, Severus draped the Cloak over Harry during a moment when all eyes were elsewhere, and they disappeared from sight.
__________
Harry doubtless wanted to be in Gryffindor Tower. But Severus was certain that would be the first place anyone would look for him. So he drew him down into the dungeons.
Once he had the young wizard seated in his sitting room, Severus poured Harry a glassful of amber liquid. “Scotch,” he said at the inquiring look. “I was saving it for a special occasion. This would seem to qualify.”
The man smiled wanly but didn’t drink. Severus stood in front of him. “Harry?”
“Hmmm?”
It was too awkward to ask what he wished and Severus changed what he meant to say. “Were you intending to keep that?”
“That” was the Elder Wand, loosely clutched in Harry’s hand. He blinked and stared down at it, seemingly surprised that he was still holding it.
Harry shivered. “No, I don’t think so. Soon’s I get the chance, it’s going back into Dumbledore’s grave.”
“You don’t wish to claim it for your own?”
He gave Severus a shocked look. “Are you cracked? The bloody thing’s cursed! ‘Sides, once people know I have it, sooner or later another wizard is going to come along and challenge me to get it. No thanks. Let it rest in that tomb. There’s just something I have to do first.”
Removing his pouch from his neck, Harry carefully tipped out the contents. The items in the purse seemed very odd to Severus: a broken piece of mirror, a battered Snitch, a folded scrap of paper that didn’t look like the Marauder’s Map – and the shattered pieces of Harry’s wand.
Those pieces had been displayed to Ollivander; Severus had been there when the wandmaker had pronounced the hopelessness of repair. Why would Harry still have it? Out of sentiment?
Harry carefully laid the wand fragments on a nearby table. He tapped it with the Elder Wand. “Reparo.”
Instantly, the wand pieces fused back into a solid rod. Harry picked it up and smiled happily as a shower of golden sparks shot out of the end of it. “Merlin, am I glad to have this back.”
Here stood the most powerful wizard of the age with the coveted Deathstick at his command and all he could think of was disposing of it and settling for an ordinary shopkeeper’s wand. Truly, this Harry was a man of grace and forbearance. How could Severus have ever wished him to be someone he wasn’t?
The young man yawned suddenly, unaware of Severus’s brooding. “I’m soooo tired. I could sleep for a week.”
“I share the feeling. But you will have to surface soon and speak to the others. No doubt your adoring fans are waiting for some ringing speech from the Boy Who Lived.”
“I s’pose,” Harry mumbled. “Where’s your bedroom?”
Severus’s heart hammered at the innocent question. But he forced himself to speak evenly. “Through here.” He opened another door and led Harry silently to his bedchamber.
The Gryffindor paused and looked around at the spare but sumptuous furnishings. The bed was a charming four poster covered with a deep green duvet while green wallpaper with silver threading graced the walls. “Wow. Cozy,” he mumbled.
He had apparently exhausted his capacity for compliment and collapsed onto his bed. “First thing I’m going to do when I wake up is go to the Ministry and get your name cleared.” He fumbled at his glasses and laid them on the nightstand. A brief hesitation followed, then the Elder Wand and Draco’s were laid across the stems within easy reach. His own wand he tucked under the pillow.
Severus knelt beside him. He unlaced Harry’s worn and dirty trainers and carefully laid them by the side of the bed. He gestured for Harry’s robe and the man raised thin arms, letting him pull it off and over his head. “Getting me exonerated might be difficult. My story is rather incredible. You will have trouble making yourself believed.”
“Not if you’re with me,” he replied sleepily. “Let them read your mind, give you Veritaserum, talk to Dumbledore’s portrait. Whatever it takes. I’m keeping you out of Azkaban.”
This was the last thing he wanted. Severus dreaded letting anyone probe his mind. They would learn he wasn’t the Severus they knew, all right. They’d also learn the true nature of his relationship with Harry in that other world. Veritaserum was secure only if they didn’t ask him too many questions about his former existence.
It was a risk he couldn’t take. He had lost everything precious to him when taken from that idyllic place. It had taken many months reconcile himself to that loss. He had been prepared to go to his death, leaving his true emotions unknown, content in the knowledge that he had saved this Harry. The humiliation of surviving and having the adolescent learn what he really felt was not to be borne.
He peered down at the figure sitting on his mattress. Harry had been stripped down to his short-sleeved tee and loose-fitting smalls. More than that Severus dared not do.
“I should wash up. But the way I feel now, I’d probably fall asleep in the shower. You’d have to hold me up and bathe me.” Harry grinned before yawning again and flopping back onto the mattress.
Oh, Merlin, the images that conjured. He muttered, “Scourgify”, cleansing both himself and Harry of dirt. It wasn’t as satisfying as a shower but it would serve for now. It was best to avoid the temptation of more thorough ablutions.
Harry opened his eyes suddenly. He reached out and grabbed for Severus’s robe. “Stay with me.”
“Harry, I needn’t. I can sleep on the couch.”
“Don’t. I-I don’t mind having you near. ‘Sides, you think Hermione and Ron are sleeping apart?”
His shy, sleepy grin made Severus’s heart turn over. He did not have the remotest chance of resisting it. “Very well. Just for the sake of sleeping, of course.”
“Sure. Just rid the wizarding world of Voldemort. Not up for more’n one bout tonight.” Harry’s words were slurring, his grip on Severus’s robe loosening with the passing seconds.
Severus removed his boots and robe but nothing else. He was certain he would wake before Harry and he wanted to make the least amount of preparations for his leave-taking.
All at once, he was gravely weary as well. Without another word, he stretched alongside Harry. Instantly, the youth curled into his side, winding his feet over Severus’s. Severus bit his lip and let out a shaky breath.
“Merlin save me,” he thought and whispered the charm that plunged the room into darkness.
__________
Bill Weasley was lying under Harry. The scarred face, covered with shaggy hair, grinned up at him. The hips arched up against his. “Get off.”
The low voice, rumbling in timber, made Harry shiver. “I’m trying to.”
Bill laughed. “You must not have had much practice.” He reached up a sallow hand, stroked at Harry’s cheeks.
The face rippled, no longer Bill’s. Severus caught Harry’s face in both hands, lowered it for a heated kiss. Narrow lips kneaded Harry’s lower lip, his tongue flicking out to tease across his teeth. He arched upwards and this time he was naked, gloriously so, his erection pulsing in time against Harry’s.
Harry thrilled to find his skin as bare as his partner’s. His spine bent, driving him down and rubbing against Severus in all the right places.
“That’s it, Harry,” Severus panted, the shadowed eyes shooting fiery glances at him.
Their bodies were slick with sweat, their thighs slipping together. Their pricks were in perfect alignment and Harry gasped and shuddered every time the cockheads brushed. “Brilliant, fuck,” he panted.
“Yes, yes, tighter, harder, there.” The deep tones became harsh, rougher, like the werewolf’s only far wilder. Long fingers were sinking into Harry’s waist, yanking him over the source of their mutual pleasure.
Severus was no longer talking. His head tilted back and his gaping mouth invited another kiss…and Harry obliged. The meshing of lips was followed by nibbles, bites, the sliding of tongues. Harry hissed in Parseltongue, “Let us mate, dear one.”
The black eyes opened wide and Harry tumbled into them.
“Severus!” Harry blinked crusty eyelids, yawning. Then he jerked upright, momentarily disoriented.
This wasn’t his room. He tensed, wondering if he’d been captured. Then the events of the previous hours rushed in on him.
“Severus?” The Potions master wasn’t in bed beside him. Harry sat up, registering that he was still in his t-shirt and smalls. There was a stickiness spreading across his groin and his face warmed. Lousy dreams…
Harry cleaned and dressed quickly. He smiled to find his robe newly spotless and fresh, doubtless from the Cleaning Charm. The Elder Wand lay crossed neatly over Draco’s, precisely where he’d left them. The only difference was the neat square of paper laid next to them.
He opened the Marauder’s Map and tapped it with his wand. “I solemnly swear I am up to no good.” When the map was revealed, he snapped, “Where is Severus Snape?”
The map showed nothing. No dot popped up with Severus’s name on it and Harry’s heart sank. Severus was nowhere in Hogwarts or the surrounding grounds. The Slytherin had run off, leaving him alone.
Tears stung at his eyes and Harry scrubbed them furiously. This was crazy. He hadn’t cried before, not in all the months on the run. He hadn’t cried yesterday when the dead had been laid before him. He had cried, horribly, at Dumbledore’s funeral. But there had been a cleansing to those tears, the sensation of grief lancing him open and ridding him of a terrible darkness.
He had lost something but didn’t know what. His feelings about this Severus, tangled and confused, had snuck up on him. He had hoped to find time to straighten them out. And now the man had just taken off, without a word of goodbye.
It wasn’t fair. Hadn’t Harry lost too many people already? Did he have to lose this man as well, just as he was on the verge of getting everything sorted?
Enough of this. He yanked on his Invisibility Cloak and made his way upstairs.
__________
The castle was still caught up in the aftermath of battle. He could hear various people calling, a few searching for him; evidently no one thought to look in the dungeons. Avoiding Aurors and surviving Order members, he quickly ran to the Headmaster’s office. Perhaps Severus had come there, left some word before taking off.
The stone guardians had been shattered but the entrance itself hadn’t been penetrated. Harry pulled off the Cloak and stood uncertainly, wondering how to get up the closed entryway.
A gargoyle head, missing one eye and ear, grumbled, “That’s right. Don’t mind me. I’ll just lay here and crumble, shall I?”
Harry wasn’t sure this would work. The damage to the castle was extensive. But the Elder Wand and all the power that lay in it was rightfully his now. He pointed at the debris on the floor and concentrated. “Reparo.”
Instantly, all the pieces of broken masonry and brickwork flew into place. There should have been the clattering of rocky pieces but they all flowed soundlessly into their accustomed positions with the effect of water pouring into a sluice. In seconds, no trace of the damage could be seen.
The stone figure blinked bulging eyes and flexed its shoulders as though testing its own solidity. “Blimey.”
“Acid Pops. Chocolate Frogs. Jelly Babies. Turkish Delights. Lemon – ”
“Never mind all that, boy. You just go right on up. Least I could do,” the gargoyle rumbled. It creaked open and revealed the upward winding passage.
Harry stood once more in front of the paintings of departed Headmasters and Headmistresses. They were grinning and applauding in loud cheers and he hastily shut the door lest someone below heard and came to investigate the noise.
“Well done, Harry, my boy,” beamed Dumbledore. “You Possess the Elder Wand, I see.”
Harry glanced at it impatiently. “Yes, but I’m not keeping it. Soon as I get the chance, it’s going back where it belongs. It’s best all around that way.”
The portrait nodded its approval. “Excellent! That is all that is needed to break that cycle – for the wand to come into the hands of the one wizard who wouldn’t wish to wield it. You are to be – ”
“Sir, I can’t find Snape. Did he come up here?”
The bushy brows arched in surprise at the interruption. But Dumbledore didn’t chide him. “I haven’t seen him in several days. When he didn’t return after taking the sword of Gryffindor with him, I was very worried. No one here has seen him since then.”
“He was with me all that time. He helped me defeat Voldemort.”
“Aha! You hear that, all of you? Slytherin did its part!” Phineas Nigellus Black crowed.
“Harry, let us take this into Snape’s private quarters.” Once they were settled, the portrait sank into his painted chair. “I take it Severus is not with you now?”
“No. He’s done a bunk,” Harry muttered angrily. “I thought he might have come up here before he left.” Harry sank into the cushioned chair, idly nothing the green-and-silver motif in the furnishings.
“You seem upset, Harry. I would have thought you pleased to see him gone.”
Harry squinted at him. The portrait’s blue eyes were twinkling again and he was beyond irritated about it. “What do you know about him, Headmaster?”
“I’m not the Headmaster any more, Harry, nor have I been for several months now,” Dumbledore gently corrected. “However, I know to what you’re referring. Severus has changed a great deal since that night on the tower, hmmm?”
So the old man did know. “Yeah. I was going to clear his name, honest I was! But it’s kinda hard if he’s just scarpered off.”
Dumbledore sighed. “I can’t imagine why he should have left so hastily. I know that finding you was his dearest wish. That’s why he defied me when he fled with the sword of Gryffindor.”
“Defied you? You mean, you didn’t send him with the sword?”
“I did indeed. But I told him not to contact you given your antagonism towards the Severus you knew. But he was holding on to a dream of how much you meant to each other. That must be why he did not return as he was instructed to do after leaving you the sword.”
“How much we meant to each other?” Harry whispered.
“Yes. By his account, you and he were hand-fasted with each other, with the intention of ultimately marrying.”
Harry couldn’t speak. A storm of emotion was tearing through him. Hand-fasted. He wasn’t sure what that meant but it sounded serious, especially if they were going to be married.
And Severus had never said a word about it.
The portrait seemed to understand Harry’s silence. “He never mentioned that to you? Oh dear. I had assumed, given how passionate you were in his defense just now, that the two of you had set aside your differences and come to a deeper bond with each other than in the past. I see I was mistaken.”
“So he did care for me,” Harry muttered, barely listening to Dumbledore. “Luna said he was fond of me but Snape denied it!”
“Meeting with the real you must have shattered his illusions as my warnings had been unable to do. In the face of your indifference, he must have felt how wrong it was to impose his desires upon you.”
“I guess so,” Harry said mournfully. He recalled that talk on the beach where he’d stated his decision to marry Ginny.
What a mistaken that had been. His discomfort at holding Ginny yesterday had shown him all too clearly that a future with her was not in the cards. He’d dreamed of a family because he’d never had one, not because he really cared for girls, marriage or settling down. And now that his dream was within his grasp…he realized he didn’t want it.
“I’m a right prat, Headmaster. I said something stupid to Snape. Now he’s gone and he’ll never know that I…didn’t hate him.” Harry’s feelings now were much more than a lack of hatred. But he didn’t think he could go into that with Dumbledore, even if he was only a painting on a wall.
“I’m glad to see your animosity is a thing of the past. Now I believe I know where you can start looking. Listen very carefully.”
Harry memorized the address and then dashed to the floo, grabbing up a handful of floo powder.

TBC
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Onward into the Breach