Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Way of the Patronus	By : QueenB Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 15104 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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
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“Ha! I knew it!” came the faint cry from the stacks.
Harry looked up from his scroll in annoyance. The distraction wasn’t good for his concentration. He was having problems with this particular bit of homework and Hermione hadn’t been as helpful as usual. She was still a bit stiff with him over the Advanced Potions-Making book and never stopped twitting him about its use.
Hermione slapped down a piece of paper on the library table between him and Ron, breaking into his brooding thoughts. The noise she’d made earned her a reproving glare from Madam Pince. Hermione lowered her voice but pointed excitedly to the yellowing piece of newsprint.
“See that?”
Harry leaned over the article. The moving picture was of a skinny girl about 15 years old. He failed to see what was so special about her.
“See what?” Ron squinted. “Like you weren’t about to tell us,” he muttered under his breath.
“You boys kept going on and on about how the Prince had to be a male.”
“Are you still on about that, Hermione? I thought we laid that argument to rest ages ago,” Ron said with an exaggerated sigh.
“We didn’t. You and Harry kept insisting, without any proof whatsoever, that the Prince had to be a boy. Well, here’s a picture of an Eileen Prince, taken from years ago when she was a student in Hogwarts.”
His curiosity piqued, Harry leaned closer to the picture. The pale-faced girl shown was no portrait of beauty, that was for sure. Dark glaring eyes set a bit too closely together under a heavy brow stared unsmilingly out of the moving picture. Her chin was almost non-existent and the black hair lank and unattractive. A large nose completed the picture of unloveliness.
But it was the caption underneath that got his attention. “EILEEN PRINCE, CAPTAIN OF THE HOGWARTS GOBSTONES.”
He realized where Hermione was going with this and rolled his eyes. “Hermione, you think she’s a half-blood?”
“Why not? If her dad was a wizard called Prince and her mum a Muggle, that would give her the last name of Prince. Maybe she was proud of being a half-blood!”
“That may be,” Harry said thoughtfully. “In spite of Voldemort’s--get a grip, Ron--talk about the value of being purebred, the best wizards I know of are mixed blood. Hermione, Voldemort himself, my mum.”
He returned to the matter at hand. “But that doesn’t mean Eileen here’s the Prince. The Prince isn’t a bird. He’s a bloke; I just know it.”
“You just don’t want to think a girl could be clever enough,” Hermione sniffed.
“Hermione, didn’t you hear what Harry just said? That’s the kind of snobby attitude you were dragging around in our first year. You know, the year when nobody liked you,” Ron said brightly. “Ow! Blimey, Harry, did you kick me?” he scowled.
Hermione glared at him. “No, that was me. Now if you boys don’t mind, I’ve got more digging to do. And the first place I’ll look is records of old Potions books!” she said before disappearing back into the stacks.
Harry’s brows squinched together as he continued looking at the picture of the scowling girl. Then he saw something in the tiny print that opened up a hollow chasm inside.
Eileen Prince had been in Slytherin house. And those black eyes and big nose of hers were very familiar…
His Prince was a brewer, a truly gifted one judging by what Slughorn was saying about Harry’s recent potions work. The Prince had been a student at Hogwarts. And Harry suddenly knew where he’d seen his spiky writing before, for he had seen it often enough in red ink on his Potions homework.
Shit.
But the unknown Prince was a half-blood. Was it possible…? He cleared his throat, trying to sound casual. “Hermione, maybe our Prince wasn’t Eileen but a child she might have had. You might, you know, want to check that out.”
Hermione popped back out from the stacks, surprised. Then her brow furrowed. “If she’d had a child, the last name wouldn’t be Prince like hers, would it? It would have the father’s name.”
Harry shrugged. “Maybe. Unless she wasn’t married and she didn’t want the baby to have the father’s name.”
She smiled, seizing on his reasoning. “Of course! If she was really proud of being a half-blood, then she might have wanted to keep the family name. Brilliant, Harry!”
He shrugged again, absurdly pleased by her praise. He was aware that Hermione was the smart one in their trio, just as Ron was the jolly heart and he the thoughtless brawn. He never let it bother him…unless someone like Snape was taunting him with his stupidity.
At the thought of the dark-eyed Potions master, his smile vanished. If his suspicions were correct, then things were even more fucked up than he had thought.
__________
“You are not concentrating, Potter! You need to master your emotions and clear that pitiful excuse you call a mind!” Snape snarled.
“It’s not easy to do when you’re constantly sniping at me,” Harry shot back, rubbing at his forehead. How the hell had he ever imagined himself to be attracted to this bullying git?
The resumed Occlumency lessons were not going well and Snape’s constant badgering wasn’t helping. Privately he thought he would be willing to endure another one of Professor Slughorn’s suck-up meetings than these headache-causing lessons.
“Oh, am I hurting little Potter’s feelings? Does he want to mope and cry because he’s being yelled at?” Snape sneered. “You idiot boy, if you can’t take a little verbal abuse, then you will be a sitting duck for the Dark Lord. Do you believe that he will be merciful or spare your feelings when you next meet?”
“You don’t have to tell me what Voldemort--”
“Haven’t I told you time and again not to say that name?!” Snape yelled.
It was Harry’s turn to smirk. “Now who’s losing control of their emotions?”
Snape drew up to his full height and glared down his nose at the insufferable teenager in front of him. “Unlike you, Potter, I am not a prey to my passions. I don’t lose control when I get angry.”
Harry shrugged. “You could have fooled me.”
“It’s very easy to fool you, Potter. You proved that last year,” Snape asked, with a twist of his lips. His smirk broadened as Harry’s features whitened at this reminder of Voldemort’s success at tricking him with a false vision of Sirius in danger. “Tell me when my anger has ever caused trouble, Mr. Potter?”
Harry pursed his mouth in thought. The pouted lips made Snape wince, taken aback by the abrupt burst of heat in his groin. Harry answered, missing his teacher’s sudden unease.
“Well, there was that time you wrecked your office after I saw that Pensieve memory…”
“Do not mention that incident to me, Potter, if you wish to keep out of detention for the rest of your time in Hogwarts,” Snape said, his voice low and dangerous. “It was only under great persuasion from the Headmaster that I agreed to resume your lessons after that despicable display of prying on your part, you little sneak.”
“Temper,” Harry replied mildly. “You know, I thought that memory would be something really horrific, like the people you must have killed working for Vol--” he caught Severus’s furious stare, “um, Lord Vol-au-vent.”
Snape blinked. “What?”
“Vol-au-vent. It’s a French dish with chicken…”
“I am well aware of what a vol-au-vent is, Mr. Potter. I am merely shaken by your knowledge of such a sophisticated topic as haute cuisine. I was under the assumption that your tastes were strictly of the simplistic kind, running no deeper than Chocolate Frogs and butterbeer.”
“Shows what you know, doesn’t it?” Harry shot back smugly. He wasn’t about to tell Snape about what he’d learned from Hermione after her vacation in France. He wanted to have some secrets from the man.
Snape glared again but continued with his inquiry. “Why would you call the Dark Lord by such a ridiculous sobriquet?”
Harry stared at the current DADA professor. Were they actually having a conversation instead of trading insults and disrespect? Whatever. For the moment, Snape wasn’t snapping at him and it was a welcome change from the usual nastiness of their encounters. He didn’t think the ceasefire would last long and he was determined to draw it out if he could.
“Well, I don’t like being afraid to say his name. It’s like Dumbledore--”
“Headmaster Dumbledore,” Snape automatically corrected.
Harry rolled his eyes but continued, “It’s like he once told me: fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself. People talk about What’s-His-Face as a thing to be scared of instead of an ordinary man who can die like other blokes. It makes him out like he’s a god. And he isn’t. He died twice, both times because of me.”
Harry was breathing fast now, almost panting with the force of his emotions. “I don’t care how many people he’s killed. He’s just a murderous thug to me, the bastard who killed my--” All at once Harry’s throat clogged up and he couldn’t speak.
He glanced up and caught Snape’s eyes. The DADA professor was staring at Harry as though he wasn’t seeing him at all but was focused on something truly horrible. He looked…haunted. Harry couldn’t imagine why. What had Voldemort ever done to Snape to make him unhappy?
The black-eyed gaze sharpened as Snape shook himself out of his reverie. “That still doesn’t explain why you would choose a French pastry dish as a term of insult.”
“Well, it’s a play on his name, see? And he does look something like a plucked and skinned bird to me, all white, bony and disgustingly pale like the chickens my aunt used to make me dress for dinner. He’s noseless too like a bird. And he also came out of a cauldron like he’d been stewing in there.” Harry grinned at the memory. Then he remembered Cedric lying dead at his feet and humor died.
It was Snape’s turn to wonder. Harry wasn’t thinking of his parents any longer. That expression had held an almost righteous rage to it. He well understood that feeling. He had known it when he’d learned that Voldemort had killed the only person he had ever loved, in spite of Snape’s plea that the woman be spared. Now Harry was miserable, his drawn face not a boy’s but that of a man many years older. Then he guessed the truth.
He cleared his throat. When Harry looked at him, he spoke with an uncharacteristic softness, “Cedric Diggory’s death was not your fault.”
Was Snape reading his mind again? No, he couldn’t be otherwise he wouldn’t say something like that. “Yes, it was. He wanted me to take that stupid Triwizarding cup. He said it was my rightful prize. But I had to be all do-gooding about it. He’d helped me, see, so I thought it was as much his as mine. Besides, what did it matter which of us claimed it? It would still be a Hogwarts win, one for our school, and that mattered more than any competition between the two of us.
“If I hadn’t been so stupidly noble about it,” he spat, “I would have been the only one to touch that sodding Portkey and Cedric would still be alive.”
Snape folded his arms while he considered, an internal struggle crying for attention. Comfort was not his strong suit and he was aware that they had more pressing issues. But he couldn’t ignore this mention of self-sacrifice, this caring for others, when he’d always accused the boy of being an egotistical prat like his father. It was so much like Lily; it was almost as though she was with him again, defending his miserable self to her friends.
“Such noble stupidity, as you put it, is the very thing that will defeat the Dark Lord. He cannot understand the love that prompts it nor that power that lies behind it. It is that great gift that--your mother possessed that enabled her to save you.”
“Didn’t save her, did it?” Harry muttered.
Snape’s expression hardened. He thrust his face into Harry’s and snarled, “You ungrateful boy. How dare you belittle your mother’s sacrifice!”
Harry started, tried to step back from him. But the Slytherin seized his shoulders and shook him--hard. “The woman gave her life to shield you from that monster and all you do is complain! What a miserable, puling wretch you are! You are unfit to be her son!”
Harry’s fist flew out. Snape caught it easily as well as the other one when Harry tried to hit him again. The Slytherin continued his rant, determined to get this nasty little boy to show respect for Lily Evans. “Others are sacrificing themselves to keep you alive. I have made effort after effort to keep your pathetic hide out of harm’s way and all you do is wallow in childish, maudlin, moping self-pity! Your mother loved you, gave her life for you, though Merlin knows why, and you’re simply too caught up in your own sad whinging to care!”
“Don’t talk to me about her! What do you know about love or happy feelings anyway?” Harry yelled. “You’re just a sad little man who’s still bent out of shape because of a prank my father played on you over 20 years ago!”
“You think so?” Goaded beyond reason or caution, Snape whipped out his wand. Harry tensed, expecting an attack. Instead Snape yelled, “EXPECTO PATRONUM!”
A shining gray shape shot out of his wand. To Harry’s amazement, the glimmering image of a doe manifested itself. She pranced delicately around Snape’s office, her tiny hooves making no sound. She turned to stare at them, tufted ears pricking forward as if curious about their presence.
“Wow.”
Snape fought to regain his calm. He was beginning to regret his rash reaction. But the implication that he’d never felt love in his life had infuriated him. In a split second, he’d summoned one of the precious few happy memories he’d ever had--a radiant Lily telling him she’d been accepted to Hogwarts. Harry was right; he did let his emotions get away with him, at least where the brat was concerned.
So Snape’s Patronus was a doe? Harry wondered… Not stopping to question, he raised his wand and murmured, “Expecto Patronum.”
The silver stag of his father flew out of his own wand. Instead of galloping around as it usually did, it stopped and peered at the doe. The horned beast stepped over to her and began sniffing her from head to tail.
Harry blinked. He didn’t know much about Patronuses; Remus’s lessons about them had been all too brief before the man had been forced to resign. He certainly couldn’t recall the man saying anything about how they reacted to each other. This seemed kinda…weird.
“Uh, Snape, what are they doing? Why aren’t they vanishing like they’re supposed to?”
Snape pondered the strange spectacle, equally taken aback. “I have no idea, Mr. Potter. I didn’t even know you could summon a Patronus. This is not something someone your age should be capable of.” He slid a searching gaze at the youth beside him. “How long have you been able to manifest yours?”
“Since I was 13.” Harry didn’t think he should tell the exact circumstances. Snape had been eager to throw his godfather Sirius back into Azkaban at the time and Harry and his friends had thwarted him with a triple charm that had knocked the Potions master unconscious.
Snape wasn’t sure if he was lying but if this was the truth it was incredible news. Most fully grown wizards could not manage a Patronus. Even He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, both in his youth as Tom Riddle and his crafted persona of Voldemort, could not do so and here Potter was claiming to have achieved the feat when he was barely into puberty. He was beginning to understand why the Dark Lord feared him.
A jolt of sensation seized him, much like the warmth he’d felt when he saw the boy’s pout earlier. Looking back towards the silvery creatures, he was flummoxed to see that the stag had twined its head over the doe’s. The closeness suggested a startling intimacy, more than such magical manifestations should have been capable of.
“Snape…should they be doing that?” Harry’s voice had dropped in register, its sometimes childish treble deepening to a husky tenor.
“I-I…” Damn, he didn’t like being caught off guard, without an answer or sharp retort. The warmth was increasing, curling and lodging somewhere south of his navel.
“Stag and doe. Male and female. That’s really…suggestive.” Harry’s voice trailed off.
Snape swallowed. “Potter…this means nothing.” A heavy-lidded green-eyed gaze was directed his way. Snape drew in a harsh breath and shivered.
It was as though every sense was suddenly heightened. Snape could feel the weight of the air on his skin, hear the susurration of Harry’s breath, and scent the wild mixture of heat, cinnamon, leather and grass from Harry’s skin and soap from the boy’s shampoo. All at once his clothing was unbearably heavy and chafing, as if they weren’t meant to be against human skin. There was a pounding in his ears and he didn’t know whether it was his own heart or Harry’s.
“M-Mr. Potter?” he whispered.
Harry said nothing. His eyes were glowing and they were Lily’s eyes and Snape was helpless before them.
The boy launched into his arms and their lips crashed together in a bruising kiss. Snape staggered, taken completely off guard by the unexpected attack. His arms automatically wound around Harry’s body, pressing the adolescent closer. They swayed and fell back on to Snape’s desk.
An inkwell fell and shattered on the floor, the bright tinny sound loud in the enclosed space. Neither of them noticed. A stray glance over Harry’s shoulder revealed the stag moving behind the doe. As she lowered her head docilely, the male reared on his hind legs and mounted her.
In one corner of his rapidly melting mind, Severus wondered at such bizarre behavior; since when did Patronuses act like their natural animal counterparts? Then Harry’s lips latched on to his throat and rational thought vanished.
“Ahhhhh!” When had his skin ever been this responsive to touch? Even Harry’s breath caused the flesh to tingle and burn. His pulse fluttered madly where Harry kissed over his neck and, when he suckled the skin there, lapping and nipping like he wanted to eat him alive, Severus could do nothing save moan and arch his throat, offering himself to those waiting teeth.
The frantic desire to touch, to meet flesh with flesh, flared inside him. He wanted, needed to get closer to Harry than their positions allowed. Clothing was shredded, the finesse of magic completely forgotten, as their hands tugged, pulled and ripped at offending attire.
Finally, they were nearly naked, skin to skin, breast to breast. Both their trousers were down around their ankles and Harry was rutting against the Potions master, rubbing his tumescent cock against Severus’s own. It was all hotter, wilder than anything the Slytherin could remember. It had been too long since he had known this pleasure and Harry’s wild cries did nothing to restore his equilibrium.
“Ahh…Professor…Prof…essor,” he whimpered.
Professor. Yes, he was Harry’s teacher and the boy was only 16. They had to stop…
The next moment Harry’s mouth mashed against his and the inner protest disappeared. The kiss was sloppy, undisciplined, completely without skill. But, Merlin, heat sizzled from the contact and Severus found himself grabbing Harry’s head, sucking at him like he wanted to drain every bit of saliva from his mouth.
This was a spell; it had to be. Moments ago, they had been fighting and now this… Feebly he tried to push Harry back. But the moment their skins parted, a throbbing ache erupted, seemingly from inside his very bones. Harry must have felt it too because he cried out in pain, reaching out to dig his hands into Severus’s shoulders.
“No! Don’t! I need you!” Harry couldn’t bear it. He was on the verge of…he wasn’t sure what. But Severus’s body, his touch, held the secret to quenching the fire within. He had to feel the man again!
“Potter, we…can’t,” Severus gritted. The sting of separation was getting worse, turning into unbearable pain, and he moaned. Harry pressed over him again, the pounding of his heart directly over Severus’s own, and the excruciating ache faded away as desire returned.
Another dazed glance towards the Patronuses and Severus saw that the stag was now fully mounted on the doe, his hindquarters shoving back and forth in movements that couldn’t be mistaken. He spread his own legs, wordlessly begging for Harry to give him what he needed.
Harry was still frotting against him, too witless or caught in the enchantment to take this to the next step. It would be up to him then. “Accio Salve,” Severus gasped. When a brown jar slapped into his palm, he clumsily unscrewed the lid and pressed it into Harry’s hand.
Harry glanced down, his glasses askew. “Whu…what’s this?” he panted.
“Prepare yourself, you idiot,” Severus snarled.
“P-prepare…what? How?”
Merlin, was he going to have to do everything? Severus dug into the whitish cream and began coating the tumescent cock pressing insistently against his own. Harry bleated as Severus’s hand made contact with that most intimate part of his body and thrust forward into the fingers briskly slathering him.
Normally Severus would have tended to his own needs at this point, coating his own hole until he was well and truly greased. But the ache was becoming insistent now, demanding that the act be completed before he exploded out of his skin. Wrapping his legs around Harry’s waist, Severus concentrated with all his might on opening up to his unknowing partner.
Harry might have been on the point of losing his mind but enough instinct remained for him to understand what to do next. He thrust forward, not as hard as he could have but forcefully enough to breach the waiting hole.
Severus hissed, his head thudding against the desk. It hurt, just as he’d known it would, and it would probably get worse before it got better. The boy shoved forward another inch and the burn increased.
Then it faded, just like that. A corner of his mind knew that the discomfort should have been more prolonged, given his lengthy stint of celibacy. But pain was replaced by an ecstasy so sharp, his whole body shuddered with it. His hips bucked, lifting him from the wooden surface. Harry evidently took this as an encouragement for he began thrusting harder, his mouth latching on to Severus’s neck.
Pointed nipples rasped across his own; Severus could swear he felt every bump and dimple in the teenager’s nubs. And now Harry was grabbing at his shoulders, the buttocks quivering and tensing as he drove with more force into the sweat-slick form beneath his. “Oh, Prof…Professor…sir…Sir!” he whimpered.
God, why must Harry show such respect now when it was the last thing Severus wanted to hear? “Harry,” he breathed and watched the dazed green eyes turn to his. “Harry…”
“Sn…Sna…” Another thrust into him and Severus groaned at the touch over his prostate.
“Severus.” The Potions master wanted to hear his name on those petal soft lips.
“S-Severus.”
Then there was no more need for names, for words of any kind. They surged together, cries bursting from them both, lips and tongues stroking over every place they could reach. Severus sank his fingers into the firm but tender buttocks, urging Harry with savage claws to pound into him without restraint.
His head was knocking against the wooden desk, the skin of his back being rubbed raw as the Gryffindor drove into him ruthlessly, right over that spot that made him shout and moan. The pain was entirely non-existent now, lost in the ecstasy enfolding them both. When the boy bit him on the shoulder, hard enough to draw blood, Severus’s head fell back and he screamed.
The climax ripped through him, accompanied by a burst of light so sharp it seared his eyeballs. Dimly, he heard Harry’s cries, muffled in his shoulder.
Harry came seconds after and Severus held him tightly while the adolescent rode out the storm. In the enclosed room, nothing was heard for several minutes but their ragged breaths while they drifted, exhausted, in the waning glow of orgasm.
The enhanced sensitivity from whatever charm had gripped them was fading, Severus distantly noted. He could no longer hear Harry’s heartbeat and the dungeon air was once more too cool to bear without covering. Where the devil were his clothes? “Get off,” he mumbled and pushed at Harry.
The 16 year old lifted his head and blinked. The Gryffindor had been trailing soft kisses across his collarbones and throat and it hurt somehow to have him stop though not as much as before. The glasses had been discarded or had fallen somewhere and the green eyes were amazingly large and open. A melting softness shone from them and Severus was overwhelmed with familiarity at the sight of it.
All at once, he was seized with a barely understood rage. “Didn’t you hear me, Potter?” he ground out. “GET OFF ME!”
The loud tone appeared to snap the boy out of whatever stupid haze he was lingering in. He flushed and scrambled away from Severus. He glanced down at the mess of sticky semen and salve covering his body and frowned in bewilderment. “S-Severus? What just happened?”
“It is Professor or Sir to you, Mr. Potter. I’ve told you that often enough,” Severus snapped. He shrugged his shoulder and winced. That bite needed attending and he waved his wand over it, muttering “Episkey”.
Harry found his spectacles, rearranged them back in place and glared at him. “Hey, you were the one demanding that I call you Severus, remember? And you called me Harry!”
“And we were both under a spell, you moronic brat!” Severus yelled back, stung at the reminder. “Are you so imbecilic that you can’t fathom that?”
“What spell? I wasn’t casting a spell! Were you?” Harry ended the question on a note of uncertainty.
“Oh, yes, of course! I seized this opportunity to interrupt a very important Occlumency lesson so that I could be sexually assaulted by a clumsy, virginal adolescent! Merlin’s beard, how thick can you be, Potter?” Severus snarled.
Harry glanced at Severus’s body, taking note of his disheveled look. For some reason, the man’s ghostly paleness, his thick black hair, stickily plastered to his face and neck and his lean, muscular body were…not as repulsive as Harry might once have thought.
He shook his head and hugged his body. This was crazy; it was some aftermath of the jinx or enchantment or whatever. He couldn’t possibly find Severus Snape attractive still. Then something of what the man just said hit him like a Bludger.
“Oh my god,” Harry whispered. “I raped you.”
Severus snorted. Wasn’t the boy paying any attention? This wasn’t rape, not in the true sense of the word. The act had been consensual enough. Only their feelings hadn’t been real. Well, Harry’s feelings hadn’t been. His own feelings he meant to keep to himself, thank you very much.
“Don’t be dense, Potter. This wasn’t…”
“Oh yes, it was. I-I just attacked you and…” Harry was ghastly pale and trembling like a frightened fawn, like he just might faint. He staggered away. Then he tripped, caught by the trousers that had fallen to his ankles and fell hard on his backside to the dungeon floor. His arms tightened around his knees and he began rocking back and forth, whimpering mindlessly.
Severus frowned and called the Gryffindor’s name. There was no response whatsoever except for that confounded rocking. By all the beasts in the Forbidden Forest, what was addling that half-witted brain now? He was the one who had been sexually molested; why was Potter acting so traumatized? Summoning his wand, Severus pointed it at Harry. “Legilimens.”
Unfurling in Harry’s thoughts with all the starkness of ink on white paper, the scene surged into Severus’s mind.
A big, beefy man, a bushy moustache gracing a porcine face, loomed over a scrawny, underfed, young Harry. The boy in this scene could have been no more than 12 and he cringed before the ominous figure.
“So you’re not allowed to perform magic, eh? Well, well, well, this is a bad development for you, isn’t it? All these weeks you’ve been terrorizing us with the threat of turning us all into hamsters and you’re not allowed to perform magic at all, are you?” the man gloated. He began slowly unbuckling his belt.
“Don’t,” Harry said in a quavering voice. “I’ll scream! I’ll tell Aunt Petunia!”
“Scream away, boy. Your aunt’s taken little Dudley out for ice cream. Feels it’s the least he deserves after being tyrannized by you and your freakish ways all summer.” The belt came off and the oversized trousers were pushed down along with the underwear. The man leaned down to pull off his shoes.
The boy took the opportunity to run for the door but the brute was too quick for him. He grabbed Harry by the arm, twisting it viciously in the process. Harry screamed with the pain before the man flung him on to the bed.
Without bothering to remove his trousers, he clapped one hand over Harry’s mouth while unbuttoning the boy’s trousers and pushing them down to his knees. Harry struggled viciously but his strength was no match for the piggish brute overpowering him. The man dropped his full weight on Harry and began thrusting brutally, grunting with the force of it.
The green eyes rolled into Harry’s head before filming over. The child’s struggles faded until he was limp under the man’s suffocating weight.
Choking back bile, Severus pulled out of Harry’s mind. The rocking had stopped, leaving the teenager oddly shrunken on the floor. He didn’t look up at Severus just dropped his head on to his forearms until only his hair could be seen.
Appalled into silence for once, Severus stared at the bent head. God, he’d never known, never suspected… Granted, his own childhood had been deeply unhappy but it had stopped short of physical abuse. His parents had argued violently after his Muggle father had found out his mother was a witch but there had never been anything like this.
Why had Harry never said? How could he have borne such horror and never whispered a word?
Was Dumbledore aware of this? Did Harry’s friends know? That ignorant Weasley boy and bushy-haired know-it-all Granger acted with the typical insouciance of rambunctious juveniles. Never had he seen a hint of such a shadow lying over them or the young man crouched on the floor.
“Harry…”
“Oh, it’s Harry now, is it?” The voice was thick with bitterness. Harry staggered upright and began scrambling for his clothes. Clutching them in his arms, he continued to speak without looking at Severus. “I-I’m sorry for what happened here, Professor.”
“I’m not.” The words escaped him before he could think.
Shocked green eyes flew to his. “Are you insane? After what I just did!? How can you even stand being in the same room with me? This was… I was disgusting! I should be horsewhipped or…”
“Don’t be melodramatic, Potter.”
Harry flinched at hearing his surname but didn’t respond otherwise. With shaking wand, he tried to perform the Cleaning Charm but merely succeeded in smearing the incriminating fluids farther over his torso. When Severus made a gesture, he shot him a sharp glare. “Don’t.” Harry swallowed and whispered, “Tergeo” again and this time the fluid disappeared.
What course he should follow next? Would silence be best? The boy certainly knew how to keep a secret; perhaps if Severus simply said nothing and carried on as usual, this would be buried and they could continue as always.
No. What had happened here, what he had seen, would affect adversely any continued relations between them if he didn’t think of some way to rectify the situation. The boy was committing silent self-flagellation, convinced that he was no better than his waste of an uncle.
“I am not sorry for this.” When Harry opened his mouth, he held up his hand. “Do be quiet and don’t interrupt for once. What happened here was not your fault.”
“But a spell--”
“What did I say about interrupting?” The adolescent’s mouth snapped shut. “Yes, it was a spell, one that neither of us cast. But we had to allow its continuance. Such is the nature of certain spells.”
“But you tried to stop. You pulled back and I forced you t-to…”
“I did try but only because I was aware that something was amiss. But the pain was too great for either of us to bear so I simply allowed the spell to ride itself out. Once I succumbed to it, there was no pain for me, I assure you. In fact, there was a great deal of gratification.” He let his voice lower suggestively, flicking his gaze over Harry’s near-naked form.
As he expected, Harry flushed, right up to his eyebrows. There was a different kind of shame on his face now, one tinged with embarrassment rather than self-loathing. “But I’d never before…I mean, there was my uncle…”
“What we did was in no way comparable to what that beast did to you!” Severus growled. “There was pleasure, given and shared, and that made all the difference.”
The Gryffindor nodded uncertainly. It was clear Harry wasn’t entirely convinced but he was willing to accept the older man’s bare attempt at comfort. He changed the subject slightly. “If it was a spell, what kind of spell was it, when neither of us was casting it?”
“I believe it came from our Patronuses.”
Harry blinked. “It did? But Remus never told me about that.”
“I suspect the werewolf didn’t know. I myself have never heard of such a thing nor witnessed its like. It merits investigation,” Severus mused.
“Oh.” The boy shifted from foot to foot, his brow furrowed. “So we really couldn’t stop it?”
“No. In nature, when a male and female…engage, they must continue through to the end of the act. Otherwise it causes great pain for the female and occasionally the male as well. The nature of our Patronuses in some way instigated that predicament for us.” Severus could feel a stain of heat cross his face. Merlin, now he must be blushing and he forced his expression to rigid blankness.
“Right.” Harry swallowed. “So this really was beyond our control.”
“It would appear so.”
“So…we can continue as usual?”
“You are correct.” When Harry raised his head and met his gaze steadily, Severus found himself speaking rapidly to forestall any more apologies. “This changes nothing between us, Potter.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are still an arrogant, attention-hogging, careless boy of mediocre abilities.”
Harry didn’t answer.
“And you will report for your next Occlumency lesson next week at the usual time.”
Still no reply. The youth merely began getting dressed, his back turned to Severus. Was Harry already beginning to suppress what had happened? Severus was unnerved by the silence; he would have preferred that the Gryffindor rant and scream.
“This meant nothing, you understand? This was an unknown spell gone awry and adolescent hormones running amok. We are both lucky…” He faltered under Harry’s disbelieving stare and changed what he was going to say. “It might have had terrible consequences for us both. It certainly can’t be repeated.”
Harry’s features tightened. Devastating loss, hurt and resignation flickered in those eldritch eyes.
Oddly, Severus was reminded of that shameful moment he had called Lily a Mudblood. An instance later, he would have given anything to recall the word. She had never forgiven him and he had lost his only friend. Somehow this was like losing Lily all over again.
Why he should think of losing Harry? It’s not as if he owned the boy, after all. Getting possessive after sex wasn’t something Severus Snape did. He had learned that lesson long ago.
Abruptly aware of his own nudity, he stretched out his wand hand to clean up the seminal fluids coating his own body. Harry gave a startled yelp so that Severus nearly dropped his wand. “What is it now, Potter?” he snapped.
Harry pointed. “Professor…look!”
Frowning, Severus glanced down at his left arm. For a moment, he didn’t register what he was seeing…or, rather, what he wasn’t seeing.
The Dark Mark was gone.
Both men stared at the pale, unmarked flesh. Then Harry rushed forward and grasped Severus’s arm, turning it back and forth as though the familiar skull-and-snake mark had slithered around and was hiding in the back of his elbow.
“It was right there, wasn’t it? I remember when you showed it to the Minister, Cornelius Fudge.”
“I know very well where it is…was. Unlike you, I’ve had to live with it for the past 18 years.” But there was no sting behind the words. Severus stared, stunned and disbelieving, at the pristine skin. No, there was no mistake. The visible sign of his youthful blunder in allying himself with Voldemort had vanished, presumably for good.
“I don’t get it. How could something like this happen? Was it what we did?”
“I doubt a ferocious shag, no matter how devastatingly pleasurable, is enough to peel off a cursed tattoo, Harry.” Unconsciously, he used Harry’s first name, too distracted to realize that he’d done so.
Harry brushed his fingers in wonder over the clear skin and Severus bit back a moan. An odd tingle had followed the path of Harry’s caress, like a tongue of flame had licked over the flesh. It seemed to ignite hidden places within and he jerked his arm out of the boy’s grasp.
Attempting to recover, he gestured with his wand so that the familiar knee-length woolen jacket with its myriad buttons flowed over his body. Glad of the comfort of concealment, he straightened and looked down at Harry. “This is a serious development, Potter.”
“Well, yeah, I’d say so! Looks like you’ve been kicked out of the Voldie’s Special Hair Club for Men,” Harry quipped.
Severus glared. Resisting the urge to smack that foolish grin off Harry’s face, he ground out, “As usual, you are failing to grasp the gravity of the situation. Now that I no longer bear the Mark, I cannot be summoned by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named for any of his special meetings.”
“So? Isn’t that a good thing? I know how dangerous those meetings were for you, what with playing the double agent and all.”
Severus pinched the bridge of his nose and prayed for patience. “Yes, they were dangerous. But they were necessary in order to maintain the Dark Lord’s trust in me and gather information for the Headmaster and the Order of the Phoenix.
“The Mark wasn’t merely a Death Eater tattoo. It acted as his link with all his followers. He will be aware that the link has been severed and my tenuous place in his circle will be lost forever. Not only is my usefulness as a spy is at an end, he will be certain to inform the other Death Eaters that I am a traitor and to be killed on sight.”
“Oh. I guess that is a problem.”
“The understatement of the year, Mr. Potter.”
There was a moment’s silence while the two stared at each other. “I suppose this means you’ll have to tell Dumbledore.”
“Headmaster Dumbledore. And, yes, he will have to be informed.”
“Uh, what are you going to tell him exactly?” Harry flushed again. He seemed to do that quite often when he thought of sex; it was almost endearing.
“The truth is impossible. Not only are you underage, you are my student. What happened between us was the severest breach of trust. However, since this is obviously the result of a spell, an explanation of some sort is required.”
“Well, I guess you could just mention our Patronuses and what they were doing. You could leave out the…” Harry swallowed.
“Yes, quite. No mention of the rambunctious sexual tumbling need be mentioned,” Severus finished dryly.
Harry shifted from one foot to the other. “Do you want me there when you tell him?”
“Not necessary. You are profoundly incapable of keeping a secret of this nature from him.” A sharp look from under the tousled bangs recalled the mental scene Severus had intruded upon moments ago and the Potions master’s jaw clenched. “Yes, well, be that as it may, I believe this is something I can tell him myself. There is no need for you to be involved.”
“What if he asks me? I reckon he will. You know the Headmaster.”
Severus’s lips pinched tight. Yes, he did indeed know Dumbledore. If the old man didn’t insist on Harry’s presence to explain his version of events, he might very well corner the boy alone and Merlin knew what damage Harry would do.
“Potter, there is no need for an elaborate subterfuge on your part. Merely let the Headmaster know that we both summoned our Patronuses in a rash display of anger and they…behaved in a way neither of us had foreseen. When they disappeared, so did my Mark.”
“You think he’ll accept that? You know how sharp he is.”
“He will have no choice as long as you do not lose your head and blurt out more than you need,” Severus chided.
The boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. Severus was seized with the absurd desire to run his tongue over the throat and lick up the droplets of perspiration there. Averting his head, he gestured towards the door. “You may leave now, Potter.”
He turned away and did not watch the lad go. When Harry was gone, the echoing silence in the dungeons felt empty in a way they never had before. It was like something intimate, precious and lovely had been lost.
Severus didn’t like that feeling one bit.
He glared at the spot where the Patronuses had stood. They were long gone, but the air still held a faint charge, with a bright non-scent to it like that experienced after a lightning storm. Was there a halo in the air, a shimmering outline of the vanished deer?
He shook it off. Doubtless merely a hallucination. The whole evening was beginning to assume the air of a fantasy, a forbidden one that had played out in the secret recesses of his mind for too many years. He’d thought himself successfully delivered of it when he laid that trap for...
The thought shut off automatically, as it always did. He wouldn’t think of it. He had papers to grade and a lesson plan to prepare for the third years. He also had a plausible story that he needed to concoct before he confronted one eagle-eyed Headmaster.
Merlin save him.
Severus sighed. Then the rest of this evening’s events replayed through his mind and his lips twitched.
Lord Vol-au-vent, eh? Allowing a rare chuckle, he retreated to his desk.

TBC
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The Way of the Patronus