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Sadness of Eros	By : LoupGarou1750 Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 7628 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: JK Rowling and her business associates own the world of Harry Potter. I make no money from this, nor anything else. The words 'The open palm of desire wants everything' are from the Paul Simon song 'Further to Fly'. He owns those.

Chapter List
- 16
- 17
- 18
17

"Aerrrgh!" The dark-haired man came with loud grunt and a final jaw bruising thrust, then quickly pulled out and tucked himself back in. "That was good. You're a talented little cocksucker, I'll give you that. Now, I think you should give me something in return. What do you say?"

Harry struggled to his feet; his right knee had been grinding into a sharp stone during most of the encounter. He smiled, wiping spit and spunk from his lips. "Want to return the favour, do you?"

Something smashed into Harry's temple. He staggered back, then found himself on his knees, head spinning, stomach heaving. Dizzily he thought it must have been a fist because he'd seen no weapon, but he'd had no idea that a fist could cause so much pain, and what difference did it make? Fist or club, he didn't think he was going to be able to get up any time soon.

"Fucking faggot!"

It took a minute to make sense of any of it. He expects me to pay him! Harry groaned, as much over his own stupidity as the throbbing in his head; this park was frequented by married punters hungry for a one-off and gay lads with a taste for the great outdoors, not pros. There had been no mention of money when Harry'd dropped to his knees, nor during the ensuing act, and now, with the hateful word hanging in the air, Harry knew he was in trouble. Abstract knowledge turned to real fear when the dark-haired man whistled and two figures emerged from the shadows of the trees, moving quickly and silently in spite of the heavy-soled, steel-toed boots they both wore.

Taking a deep breath that made his head spin worse than ever, Harry pushed himself to his knees just in time for a booted foot to connect with the wider target his ribs offered. With a strangled grunt, he fell back to the pavement, curling into a foetal position in an attempt to protect his rib cage from further damage.

"This is a family park, innit? We don't need you filthy fugging faggots here, making decent people scared to walk through at night!" The words were punctuated by kicks to his back, thighs, and shoulders, and then there was a rain of agonizing blows to his face and the back of his skull.

Wand! Your wand! Get your wand out, you fucking idiot! Jesus! They're Muggles, you're a wizard! Harry struggled to raise a hand from the pavement, but the movement made his ribs scream and his stomach felt as if it might leap out his throat. Whether the three thugs had seen his movement, or whether it was just general principles, a foot lashed out again, connecting with his groin this time. Harry screamed as he went over. He only barely registered a loud crack! before blackness overtook him.

He awoke shivering. Every sinew in his body screamed in protest as he tried to straighten his legs. His cheek was resting in a cold, sticky pool that he first assumed to be vomit – he had a vague memory of puking – until he raised his head and touched his hand to a gash still seeping blood. It took several sickening minutes before he could raise himself into a sitting position, and then several more to process the weak and confusing memories of what had happened. His breath caught painfully in his chest as he remembered the loud noise just before he'd passed out. With a shaking hand, he reached for his wand. It snagged on something in his pocket, which it shouldn't have done. Desperate, he fought back the waves of pain and tugged hard, nearly screaming as his wand came free with a suddenness that tumbled him onto his badly damaged ribs. Tears sprang to his eyes as he looked at the two splintered pieces of wood, only barely held together by the phoenix feather core.

Harry felt as if something had died. He could not let Ginny see him in this condition – stiff, sore, dizzy, broken-wanded, broken-bodied. He thought briefly of his friends and then dismissed them; they would feel obligated to tell his wife. St Mungo's was out of the question unless he wanted to greet the morning over banner headlines enthusiastically screaming the salacious details of his fall from grace. There was only one option. Getting to his feet was an exercise in torture, but at last he made it. Awkwardly fitting the two halves of his wand together, Harry held it aloft and summoned the Knight Bus.

"Grimsthwaite," Harry croaked as he made the agonizing climb up the bus's stairs. Ignoring the looks of the driver and the other passengers as they took in his bloody, battered face and the arm curled protectively around his ribs, he staggered to the first available seat and slipped into darkness again.

He awoke to the smell of smoke. "Fire!" he croaked, his voice so weak he almost couldn't hear himself. "Somebody! Fire!" The words came out a little louder that time, he thought.

"Fucking moron. Yes, there's a fire. In the fireplace."

The words, though whispered, were loud enough to make Harry wince, but they sounded oddly affectionate. Ginny, he thought, but that didn't seem right; the voice had been too deep. "Ron?" he asked thickly.

"That's the thanks I get for saving your pathetic life? Insults?"

"Snape? Fuck! Snape!" Not knowing why, Harry began to weep. Appalled, he struggled to wipe his eyes but found he couldn't move his hands. He soon discovered he couldn't move anything else either.

"Stop struggling, Potter. I've restricted your movements lest you re-injure yourself. Not my imagined scenario for having you tied down in my bed, although you being all over black and blue certainly fits."

Black and blue? What's going on?

"And stop snivelling. You'll choke on your own snot." For the first time, Snape moved into view as he bent over Harry, wiping eyes and nose with a handkerchief. "Bones take almost as long to knit as they do to grow; you've got at least another four hours in front of you. You might as well relax."

"What happened?" Harry thought he might as well take advantage of working mouth and vocal cords, since no other parts of his body seemed mobile.

"I had assumed you'd tell me."

Harry closed his eyes, feeling tears leaking from under his lashes. He didn't remember. He didn't think he wanted to remember.

"Well, I'll tell you what I know, although it isn't much." Snape dabbed Harry's eyes again before summoning a chair to the side of the bed and sinking into it. "Apparently, from someplace in Muggle London, you flagged down the Knight Bus, gasped out the word 'Grimsthwaite' and proceeded to collapse in a senseless, bloody heap. As luck would have it, the conductor is a cousin of Walter's. You remember Walter?" A malicious smile twisted Snape's mouth.

Harry grimaced in response – only Snape would use the guise of a helping hand to prod so viciously at an emotional sore point.

"The driver remembered that his cousin had an 'odd friend' and putting two and two together and miraculously, given the sort usually employed on the Knight Bus, came up with four. The 'odd friend' must be a wizard. He brought you to my door. You had a seriously damaged kidney, several broken ribs, and enough cuts and contusions to lend you a more than passing resemblance to chopped meat. Perhaps you'd like to fill in the background."

"I don't remember," Harry lied. The details of his encounter in the park had come flooding back. "And don't you dare!" he snapped as Snape leant forward and Harry felt the familiar probe of Legilimency. He tried to Occlude, but was too tired and weak.

Snape easily pushed through Harry's pathetic defence. Images of his fight with Ginny and his experiences in the park flashed through Harry's brain, sickening him. After several long minutes and, Harry thought, more than one run through, Snape sat back, a look of disgust on his face.

"I won't say you deserved it – no one does – but even knowing you as I do, I find it hard to grasp you could be so monumentally STUPID!" Snape's ravaged vocal chords were incapable of actually producing a shout, but the last word was like a blow and Harry would have cringed if he could. "To even put yourself into that situation, let alone forgetting you had the power to stop it before it was too late!"

Snape stood, looming over Harry, an unfathomable look on his face.

"Terrific bedside manner you've got," Harry croaked.

"If you wanted sympathy, you should have gone home to your wife." The words were said in a scathing tone, but Harry took what comfort he could in the fact that Snape wiped his eyes and nose with the handkerchief again before turning away and fairly storming from the room.

Judging by the position of the sun as seen through the grime-streaked window, several hours had passed when Harry woke again. He struggled to sit up and was surprised to find he could. It didn't even hurt very much.

"Sleeping Beauty awakes."

Harry looked to see Snape sitting in a chair by the window, a book in his lap.

"There's soup. I'm sure you'd like something more substantial, but teeth take longer to re-grow than bones to knit, and you're still missing a few. You should be able to manage the bread if you dunk it thoroughly."

"Thank you," Harry said, suddenly aware of his rumbling stomach. "And I don't just mean for the soup." He clutched the bowl Snape held out to him and began to drink without even waiting for a spoon.

"You are obviously a glutton for more than punishment."

Harry thought he heard a note of affectionate amusement and he smiled, but Snape's expression was devoid of tenderness. Glumly, Harry nodded. "Thank you again for fixing me up. I'll be out of your way as soon as I find my clothes." He set the bowl on the small table by the bed and looked around for his jeans and shirt. "I'm sorry if coming here was a mistake. I didn't know where else to turn."

"Do not make the mistake of thinking I care, Potter. I'd have done the same for any stray dog that wound up on my doorstep." Snape gave Harry an ugly look and returned to his book.

Sliding his legs over the edge of the bed, Harry stood, painfully aware that he was naked, in Snape's bedroom, under the worst possible circumstances. It had been a mistake to come here and his only excuse was that he had fucked his life so badly he'd had nowhere else to turn. "My clothes?" he asked quietly.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Snape stood, his face red with anger.

Something withered inside Harry; the words were exactly the ones Ginny had used. "I don't know," he mumbled.

"Not good enough!" Snape snarled, whirling and advancing on Harry. "Do you need the danger? Is that it? Is that what has you kneeling on the piss-stained floors of public toilets, opening your mouth to any stranger that shows his cock?"

"Because you don't frequent those same filthy toilets?" Harry snarled back.

Snape grabbed one of Harry's arms, twisting it violently till Harry's fist was pressed painfully between his own shoulder blades. All colour had drained from Snape's face, making his features harsher than ever. His mouth was twisted into an ugly sneer. "You want to be hurt, is that it? Or is it simply that your life is too tame, and by exposing yourself, you hope to draw back the notoriety and attention you claim to despise? Which is it, Potter?" He frog-marched Harry to the window, flinging it open with one hand. "Do you want the world to look at you?"

Even though the view from the window showed no human figure or house, Harry felt horribly exposed. "NO!" he roared, trying to twist out of Snape's grasp.

"So it's the punishment you seek? Very well." And with that, he yanked Harry's arm again, forcing him to turn so they were face to face. Suddenly, Snape stepped back and laughed derisively, his gaze shifting from Harry's eyes to his crotch.

Fervently wishing the earth would split open and swallow him, Harry glared back. His nakedness, Snape's proximity after months of being apart, had made him hard. That's all it is! Harry thought desperately. That's all.

"A life, a wife, children, friends, fame, money – none of it's enough for you. The great Harry Potter needs more. Get down on your knees, you filthy little fuck. Get down there and suck my cock as if your life depended on it, because the way I feel at the moment, it very well might." Snape's wand was in his hand. He made a short, stabbing motion with it and Harry fell, his knees thudding painfully against the floor. "That's better," Snape said. "Now start sucking while I offer a prayer of thanks to the men who knocked out your teeth."

"No!" Harry screamed again, scuttling backwards. "No! Not like this! Not with you! Never like this with you!" Ridiculously, tears were streaming down his cheeks and he swiped at them angrily. "God help me. I love you, you fucking son of a bitch! I love you and I don't know what to do about it! I don't fucking want to. I don't. I don't."

"Spare me." Snape looked down, an expression of pure loathing on his face. "You don't love anyone. I don't believe you're capable of it. You're the same self-centred, arrogant twat you've always been. Nothing matters to you. No one matters but you. As long as you get what you want, the whole bloody world can go to hell. Well, you want to suck cock bad enough to be beaten for it? Suck then."

His back literally against the wall, Harry could retreat no further. He looked up at Snape and suddenly felt horribly empty. "No," he said weakly. "You want to kill me? Go ahead. I think you might be doing me a favour." There was no bravado in his voice, no feeling of melodrama inside him. The words had come out without thought, but now, thinking about what he'd said, he recognized the truth of it. He'd made such a mess of his life and no matter what he did, which way he turned, he hurt the people he loved most. All he wanted was to disappear.

To Harry's shock, Snape backed away and began to applaud slowly. "Bravo! Harry Potter in a stellar performance as the desolate maiden. Spare me."

Harry laughed. Snape looked at him as if he'd gone mad.

Perhaps I have. I can't believe I've actually been missing his insults.

"Release the spell. I won't do anything rash."

"I'll regret this, I'm sure." Snape waved his wand and said, "Finite Incantatem!"

Wincing and holding his ribs tightly, Harry sat up. He wanted to scream as he straightened his legs, but managed to keep it to a grunt. "I could have," he said through gritted teeth, "gone anywhere, I think. Even home. I could have. It would have been horrible, although probably no worse than coming to you. But at that moment, all I could think was, 'I have no choice. There is nobody else I can turn to.' So I turned to you."

"It was–"

"It was presumptuous and wrong-headed and maybe even cruel of me." Harry stopped and rubbed his forehead; he had no idea how to make what he was saying any clearer. The movement made his ribs ache and his mind filled with images of boots and fists. "I couldn't think of anywhere else to go," he said helplessly. "Please, Snape?"

"I knew I would regret it," Snape said sourly. Harry winced as Snape pulled him to his feet and kissed him greedily.

***

Harry stretched and made a low purring noise deep in his throat. He felt incredible, in spite of the fact that his body hadn't completely recovered from the beating in the park. He should never have pushed Snape out of his life and having him back again felt like Christmas and his birthday rolled into one. "Come back to bed, you idiot! Dawn isn't for hours yet," Harry said cheerfully as he rolled over. He frowned, all good humour gone. Snape's back was an uncompromising line as he stood at the window looking out into the night. He was already dressed for the day, right down to the green wellies.

What the fuck is the matter now? God, do you have to do this every time? Sex with Snape had always been better than good and that night it had been made better by an unexpected gentleness, but once again it appeared the aftermath was going to be another tiring round of Snape being irritable.

"Get dressed. I want you to leave and I don't want you to ever come back."

"Very funny." What the fuck is wrong with him?

"This isn't a joke!" Snape screeched. "It's my fucking life! It's over, Harry. We're through. I can't keep doing this." There was a finality to his tone Harry had never heard before. It made him shiver.

"Snape, don't."

Snape whirled, his face showing the strain of both anger and resignation. "I'm tired of longing for people who are unavailable. My heart is tired. It's a dynamic as old as I am and I'm sick to death of it."

Harry felt as if he were drowning; his lungs seemed ready to explode from lack of air. "Don't say that. I'm here, aren't I? It's where I want to be."

"For how long? How many days before you feel guilty about your wife and children and go running back? No, you're not available, but you expect me to be, always here waiting for you when the mood strikes, when it's convenient, when you can slip away or manufacture some pathetic stratagem, or tell yourself you've nowhere else to go." Snape's fists were clenched at his sides. "I can't do this anymore. And it's wrong of you to ask me to. Go, Harry. Go back to your life, to what is really important to you. Work things out with your wife. Hire a prostitute to fill your needs if she can't meet them. Just leave me out of it."

"You don't mean it. You can't! God, how many times have I told you how much you matter to me? How much I need you, want to be with you? I know our situation isn't ideal, but we can work something out. We can! I know we can if only you're willing." Harry groaned, straining to find the right words, the ones that would snap Snape out of this horrible gloom. "I love you! You can't just–" Harry stopped, floundering for the right words.

"Do you? Well, perhaps you do. God knows in spite of everything I've tried to do to stop it, I'm afraid I may love you as well. It isn't enough. It's even less than not enough. Loving you diminishes me. Do you understand? It shouldn't be that way."

"You mean that, don't you?" Harry's insides seem to turn to ice. "You love me and you think it weakens you. You're wrong! Love isn't like that. It doesn't do that!"

"I'm tired, Harry. I'm tired of making do, of subsisting on what's left over. It isn't enough. I must stop this. It's a form of insanity. It's a disease. My whole life has been this way. I deserve more, damn it!"

The pain on Snape's face was horrible. Harry stood and began to slowly gather his things. I did this. I put that look on his face. God! That's it then. If he feels that way, I have to leave. I've no right to stay.

"Snape, I never meant–"

"I know."

"Is there some way...something I can do–"

"Nothing except leave. Please go. And please, if you really do have any love for me, don't come back."

"I...I can't do that. I need you. I've been miserable since I sent you away. When we're not together, I can't think of anything, anyone but you." Harry put his hand on Snape's arm and flinched as it was immediately flung off.

"I will not do this," Snape said through clenched teeth. "I will not exist on scraps! Not anymore. Never again."

"But I love you!"

"Grow up, Harry! For fuck's sake. Be a man and not that hard-headed arrogant boy. You're not the Chosen One any longer. You don't get to have everything you want. YOU ARE NOT THAT SPECIAL!"

"We can fix this!" Harry flinched, remembering having said the same thing to Ginny. But it isn't so unreasonable, is it? "God! Something is better than nothing! You have to think that! I know it isn't ideal. I know that, but we're good together. You love me, you admitted it!"

Snape looked at him wearily. "No. Something is not better than nothing. Not in this case. You're trying to destroy me and I won't let you succeed. You want to fix this, Harry? You have two choices: you leave your wife, or you leave me be."

"What? You can't mean–"

"Oh, but I do. I am as serious about this as I have ever been about anything, anything in my life! You need me? You can't think of anyone but me? Prove it. Put me first."

Are you mad? "Snape, I–"

"I'll give you three months, Harry. Three months to make up your mind. Three months to get your life settled. Today is the second of January. Show up here on the second of April and you'll find me waiting. Show up any time after that and I'll hex you into oblivion!"

"I–"

Snape advanced threateningly. "Do not make the mistake of thinking I don't mean what I say, that I'll get over it," he hissed through clenched teeth. "I will not see you again unless you're a free man. Those are my terms. If you show up and expect to pick up where we left off, with nothing changed, I will kill you. I believe you know me well enough to know I'm capable of it. Three months, Harry. It's beyond generous. It's up to you." Snape pushed Harry's bloodstained jacket into his hands. "NOW GET OUT!."

~*~*~*~*~
- 16
- 17
- 18
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Sadness of Eros