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Life Eternal	By : AlectoPerdita Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 10864 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Life Eternal

By Alecto Perdita

Chapter 2 - Snape

Beta'ed by epysiarch and Amanda Saitou

Rating: R

Posted: December 24, 2004

Revised: September 17, 2005

Warnings: Slash, HP/SS

Email: alecto.perdita@gmail.com

Site: http://cocytus.eternity-inc.net

Mailing list: http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/cocytus

Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the intellectual property of J.K. Rowling, and is being used in this fanfiction for fan purposes only. All situations, opinions and characters not belonging to J.K. Rowling are the intellectual property of Alecto Perdita.

Severus awoke abruptly in bed. It was as if someone had dumped an entire bucket of water over him. He didn�t need to look over at the clock on his mantle to know it was seven in the morning. He had taken four drops of his sleeping draught the night before and received his prescribed eight hours of uninterrupted rest.

His robes were laid out on the foot of his bed. He looked around the bare room. The original furnishings of the room and of the rest of the castle had been sold years ago when Severus first moved out of this wretched place to pay off his father�s remaining debt. Most of his belongings were still at Hogwarts since he lived there ten months out of the year. Siobhan had already arranged to move the scant belongings he kept at the ch�teau.

As he sat up in his bed, he noticed the envelope lying on top of his robes. He summoned the letter to him. On the front, Severus was written in a crisp, smooth script that he recognized immediately as Siobhan�s. He broke the wax seal featuring Siobhan�s heraldry- a pair of scissors- and unfolded the letter. She had owled him to inform him that Sinclair would be arriving toward the end of the week to pick up Jessica from Heathrow airport and that Severus was expected to greet the young woman and welcome her into their home.

He scowled and untangled himself from his sheets to move over to the hearth where there were only dying embers. With a whispered spell, the flames leaped to life and he fed his post to it. Wonderful, he was expected to endure the Muggle monstrosity that was known as an airport.

He grabbed his wand resting next to his pillow and waved it.

Moppy appeared. �Master Severus?�

�Tell Wesley to come down to the dungeons after breakfast.�

The house elf nodded and popped out of the room again.

Wesley was here to work and Severus would bloody well make use of him. No point in letting Siobhan wastes her galleons senselessly. He only hoped the young man was as competent as Jessica claimed.

~~~

Harry slowly descended the dungeon stairway that Moppy had pointed out to him. He laid a hand against the damp stone walls and cursed the narrow stairwells as he tried to make his way down the stairs. Harry swore again as his foot almost slipped off the next wet step below. He was going to break his neck before he even faced the numerous pests this castle housed. For the first time ever, he found himself appreciating Hogwarts� dungeons in comparison.

At least all the torches mounted on the wall were lit. When he finally reached the corridor at the bottom, he thanked whatever god had seen him down that flight of stairs. He looked up and down the hall. Which way had Snape gone?

He took a moment to observe his surroundings. This was nothing like the dungeons at Hogwarts, which felt at least vaguely habitable. He was already wondering what sort of creatures lived down here. He quickly set a detection spell and started down the hallway.

Only a few meters along, the spell began to alert him to something. He whirled around and took up a defensive stance. Harry heard a strange screech echo down the hallway. There was the slight flutter of multiple wings and a swarm of bats suddenly descended on him.

He felt their furry little bodies brush against him everywhere and tried to suppress the curse and put it back to sleep. Something sharp nipped against his neck, his cheek, and then, his temple. He swatted at them. He would not murder them in cold blood� They backed off and regrouped to swarm him again.

Harry stuck his wand in the air, squeezed his eyes shut, and screamed, �Lumos Solarum.�

An answering scream from the bats nearly destroyed his hearing. They finally retreated and flew back in the direction from which they came. Harry dropped to his knee. He felt something wet trickle down the side of his face and neck, and he touched the side of his chin gently to find it stained with blood.

Harry looked up when he heard the rush of footsteps echo down the stone corridor. Snape approached with his wand drawn.

�What happened, Wesley?� Snape barked as he knelt down by Harry.

�Bats,� Harry gasped as he struggled to regain control over himself. So many lives swarming around him� With the right spell, he could have ended all of them and Snape�s surprisingly warm presence by his side made it all the harder. He could just reach out and extinguish the flame that was Snape�s life if he wanted.

He knew that Snape was entirely unaware of his dilemma. Harry had never had such a loss of control around another human being before. His hand moved on its own but it never reached above his hip before Snape stood and moved out of Harry�s reach. He could finally breathe again and inhaled deeply.

�These are the dungeons, Wesley. The castle has been left to rot for the better part of the last twenty years. Of course, a few bats will have taken up residence here. It still fails to explain your�� Snape looked him up and down in disdain, �Wounds. Surely an experienced exterminator such as yourself can handle a few non-magical pests?�

Harry rose to his feet, clenching his fists. He still wanted to kill Snape but not for the same reasons as before. �They were vampire bats. Vampire bats are native to Central and South America. You tell me what the bloody hell they would be doing in a castle in North Yorkshire.�

Snape raised an eyebrow. �I see you are quite the zoologist as well, Wesley. Vampire bats also ingest no more than twenty milliliters of blood a night, so forgive me if I fail to hold my breath in anticipation of your turning up as a withered corpse.�

Harry gritted his teeth. Snape would always be an unmitigated bastard. He should have known better. �Bloody freaky castle,� he mumbled under his breath.

�What are you waiting for, Wesley? The second coming of Merlin, perhaps? Heal those wounds. There�s work to be done. I refuse to listen to any more of Siobhan�s prattling.� Snape had already turned his back, his robes sweeping around him in the same manner Harry remembered from his school days.

Harry stared down at his hands and whispered. �I can�t.�

Snape whirled around. �Pardon?�

Harry glared up at Snape. This was a familiar sort of scene. �I said I can�t. I can�t do healing spells.�

Snape stared at him like he was dim-witted. �The incantation for a simple healing spell is hardly a challenge even for someone with your backwater education.�

�I don�t believe you understand, Professor,� Harry gritted out the man�s title against his teeth. �I am incapable of certain types of magic, with mediwitchery being one of them. And I didn�t have a �backwater� education as you so nicely put it, I attended-� Harry stopped himself before he said the word �Hogwarts.�

Snape looked at him dubiously before raising his wand and muttering the incantation. Harry winced slightly as he felt the wounds close and the skin knit back together. Just another disadvantage of being Harry Potter.

�Let us proceed, Wesley. We have quite the task before us.�

Harry couldn�t agree more. Spending this much close and personal time alone with Snape was going to push him to his limit.

~~~

Harry made his way down to the village after lunch. It was nice to know he wasn�t confined to the deserted castle grounds alone. He would probably go mad if he had only Snape to face for who knows how long. It would be safer for everyone but Harry would go mad nonetheless.

Harry breathed in deeply of the clean air. It was a beautiful day. It would be a pity to waste it locked up in a dungeon brewing potions. Too bad for Snape. Snape had already locked himself in his potions lab to brew whatever toxic solutions they would need to take care of the lesser pests. It wasn�t like he had expected Snape to entertain him. He wasn�t that dense.

He was grateful. He rarely got to spend time in such a warm and sunny environment. He had spent the last few months in the darker, sunless landscapes that seemed to compose the majority of the rural areas of Eastern Europe. This whole job was a welcome change- even if it meant dealing with Snape for a while.

He took his time taking in his surroundings. The majority of the village was notably Muggle. Snape had warned him against using magic in public for other than life or death dilemmas and mumbled irately about some fine from the Ministry. He walked away from the avenue of lemon trees to the road leading away from the castle and into the village. Children were playing on the side of the wide road and they seemed to be playing a game testing each child�s courage to see how near each would go to the old castle. Harry shook his head. They really have nothing to fear, even if it was Severus Snape.

The Avenue led straight into the paved Back Street where Harry began to see more of the villagers and buildings. Snape Castle was on the west side of the village and was relatively isolated from everything else. Down the length of Back Street, he passed by six trees planted in a row and another cluster of four more lemon trees. The buildings were mostly preserved in the same architectural state of when they were first built, which Harry guessed was anything between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. That was the strange thing about England- how the modern amenities were able to co-exist with their traditional counterparts.

The village of Snape was an awfully scenic one. He couldn�t think of any other word to describe the village but �quaint.� He would never have imagined that Snape grew up in such a�nice village. He stopped at a red light on the street corner where several cars passed. A fellow pedestrian nodded politely to him before crossing and turning left.

Harry hit a fork in the road not too far after the four lemon trees and heard the sound of running water. The passing cars didn�t drown out the sound. He followed behind a small family of four going in what seemed to be the direction of the sound. It was a small river running almost parallel to Back Street and a bridge laid over the river and its slopping banks. A sign proclaimed it to be Marina Bridge. He leaned against the railing of the bridge to peer into the running water below and swore he saw the bare hints of flashing scales and a fish tail breaking the reflective surface.

The bridge was quiet. A couple of girls with their arms intertwined with those Harry assumed to be their boyfriends gave him a pitying yet appraising look. Their stares began to make him uncomfortable. Perhaps he had discovered the meeting place for lovers. If so, he must look really pathetic standing there on his own. He turned and walked back down the bridge to continue his explorations.

A smoky voice interrupted Harry�s reverie and confirmed his suspicions. �What young lady would be daft enough to stand up a fine male specimen as yourself?�

Harry couldn�t help the heat that overtook his cheeks. It had been far too long since he had had anyone tease him in such a manner. �I�m not. Waiting for anyone, that is.�

�Which only leads me to question the taste of the fair ladies of Snape.�

He looked to the right where the voice had come from. A man stood in the tree�s shade by the side of the stream. He leaned back against the trunk and was observing Harry with a bemused expression. The man offered Harry a rather charming grin. Was this man flirting with him?

Harry recomposed himself and turned fully to face this new man and replied, �I�m not from here.�

This new man was probably five or six years older than Harry. He was dressed in a white button-up shirt and a pair of black slacks. Dark hooded eyes watched Harry with veiled amusement and a hint of decadence. The man�s raven black hair was cropped close to his ears and it fell about his face in a rather handsome and natural manner. The redness of his full lips stood in stark contrast with the white of his face. There was something inherently cruel to Harry about the curve of those lips. The first thing that stuck Harry as odd was the man�s unusual pallor. He was even paler than Snape. Harry hadn�t thought that possible. It was as if the older man�s skin was woven of moonlight- white and flawless. The next feature to strike Harry as odd- or familiar- was the man�s large hooked nose. The stranger emitted an aura that both drew and repelled Harry- a feeling that Harry loved and hated. It was there though- a dark desire churning deep in the well of stomach and mind.

Harry straightened to his full height, which still wasn�t all that impressive. �You are?�

�Abraham,� the man replied languidly. �May I have your name or shall I just call you Adonis? No, he was too arrogant. Persephone would be a more fitting appellation despite your being male.�

Harry was appalled by the man�s boldness. Abraham was flirting with him! Harry wasn�t sure he knew how to react. He had never been hit on by another man before; the possibility had never even occurred to him. He tried to push away the embarrassment that was definitely there. It would just be rude to ignore the man completely. �Cedric Remius Wesley.�

�A pleasure. I believe that Cedric means �chief�.� Abraham gave him another appraising look.

Harry couldn�t help but feel like livestock under the man�s heavy gaze. He nodded mutely in response to the older man�s statement. The only Cedric he had ever known was Cedric Diggory. �Nice to meet you, Abraham. I should really be getting back to the castle for tea.�

Harry froze when Abraham laid a hand on his forearm and prevented him from escaping just yet.

�You should be wary of the Snapes,� Abraham�s voice lost all its flirtatious edge. �Theirs is a bad blood. Be careful.�

Harry tore his arm from Abraham�s grip. �Thank you for your concern, Mister Abraham,� Harry watched as the amusement returned. �But I can take care of myself.�

�There�s a story,� Abraham promised. �I shall have to tell it the next time we meet. And we will meet again.�

Abraham pushed himself from the tree trunk with an elegant flourish and sauntered away. Harry shook his head and began his long walk back to the castle. He would never admit it aloud but the prospect of seeing Abraham again both frightened and excited him.

~~~

Harry decided he liked Sinclair Snape. He really truly did. There was no way this charming and attractive young man, only a year older than Harry, could be Severus Snape�s son. Sinclair appeared more naturally inclined to a tan with a hint of an Asian heritage tugging at the corner of his warm brown eyes. Yet the subtle similarities were still there, found in the man�s darker humor and large hooked nose. Sinclair�s voice was a nice timbre with the slightest accent. He had definitely inherited Snape�s eloquence, at least partially.

Harry was somewhat surprised when Sinclair asked for �Severus� and not �father.� When Sinclair learned that Snape was locked away in his labs already, he muttered something about not seeing Snape for another month. Harry broke out into a grin. Sounded like Snape to him. Sinclair then dragged Harry into one of the cleaner furnished drawing rooms so they could get to know each other better.

They talked about a lot of subjects from Quidditch to the British Ministry of Magic, from defensive curses and dueling techniques to Jessica, Sinclair�s fianc�e, who would be arriving in another few days.

When it was time for tea, a tray appeared on the table between them and Snape finally emerged from his dark dungeons. At first, he and Sinclair had been so caught up in their conversation about England�s chance at the World Cup vs. France�s that neither of them noticed Snape observing them. A dark feeling tugged at the back of Harry�s mind. It was a familiar one and he found his gaze unwillingly wandering from the cup of tea before him to the dark figure lounging in the doorway. Snape was dressed as always, in his overbearing black robes. His hair seemed even stringier and greasier than ever.

Without so much as a greeting, Snape strode into the room and settled into another chair at their table. A putrid smell immediately assaulted Harry�s senses. Sinclair nearly jumped out of his seat as he caught the first hint of the odor.

�What the hell were you cooking down there? Dead rats?� Sinclair exclaimed.

Harry was inclined to agree with Sinclair on that.

Snape�s scowl only deepened. �My experiment didn�t quite turn out the way I had expected.�

Sinclair sobered up. �That�s the third experimental potion you�ve blotched in the last two weeks.�

Snape poured himself a cup of tea. Harry noticed that his former professor dumped in more than enough sugar and cream. �I received an owl from your mother this morning. I was led to believe I would not have to suffer your presence until later this week.�

Sinclair didn�t appear to be insulted by his father�s comment. Whatever Harry had expected, this was not it. Sinclair simply reached for a wedge of lemon and squeezed it over Snape�s tea. �M�re wanted me to keep an eye on you, make sure you didn�t scare Cedric, here, away. Besides, I figured you would rather be using this time to get that experimental batch of Wolfsbane done with the full moon at the end of the month.�

Harry nearly choked on his biscuit at the mention of the Wolfsbane potion. Sinclair and Snape looked at him oddly and Harry excused himself from the room quickly.

It hurt to be reminded of Remus. He had failed Remus. He had failed Remus the same way he had failed Ron. Last he�d heard, Remus was lying in some bed St. Mungo�s with no hope of recovery. According to the mediwitches, the werewolf would be dead in hours. Harry had left England soon after the last battle. He didn�t even stay long enough to attend either Ron�s or Remus� funerals.

~~~

�Did I say something wrong?� Sinclair frowned.

Severus snorted and sipped his tea. �Wesley�s simply a strange one.�

�But he�s good at what he does,� Sinclair quipped.

�Let us hope so.� Severus scoffed. He still did not see the benefit of hiring this exterminator. Siobhan insisted. Jessica insisted. It was not as if Severus could not handle whatever they may come across. However, Siobhan had a point when she reminded him that he desperately needed to focus on Lupin�s new Wolfsbane.

�Do you at least have some of the regular ready for Remus? It doesn�t look like you�ll finish a stable enough experimental variation in time.�

Severus only threw Sinclair a glare across the table. �Don�t tell me how to do my job, Sinclair. You couldn�t brew a Pepper-Up potion properly if your life depended on it.�

�Oui, P�re.� Sinclair snickered.

Severus glared at the younger man but Sinclair was long immune to his death glares.

~~~

It was Harry and Sinclair who worked through much of the lower levels that week. Harry, fortunately, had no more encounters with bloodthirsty bats but they did find a few Red Caps in what appeared to have once been a torture chamber. Harry wasn�t sure he really wanted to know, so he didn�t ask. Snape left them to their own devices and continued to work on his potions. Harry felt inclined to let him to do so.

On Friday, Sinclair and Snape left for London to pick up Jessica and Harry found himself with a free day. Harry suspected they would not return until later that night with the way Sinclair went on and on about the shopping to be done and the wedding arrangements to be made. Snape had looked positively murderous at the prospect of being dragged through Muggle London and Diagon Alley. Harry feared Sinclair might not live to see his wedding at that rate.

He took this opportunity to spend some time in the library. It was strange because a majority of the shelves were empty. At the forefront of the library, Harry found the more mundane books dealing in the subjects of history and old book-keepings written up by past staffs and stewards. Then he found the Muggle literature section. He found the wizarding books all the way to the back of the library. It was a smaller collection than he had anticipated but it was a gem. Harry even found the first edition of A Treatise on Proper Dueling published in 1645 with its infamous misprint of the incantation for the bloodletting curse. Most of the books bordered on dark and wavered on the line of legality. With a library as old and extensive as this one, it was no wonder that Snape had known as many curses as he had during his school years.

Harry looked up from his book some time later and saw it was half past four. He went down to explore the village again. He didn�t go back to the bridge he�d been to earlier that week. Harry had managed to forget about Abraham for the most part. He simply thought it best to avoid the bridge so he wouldn�t have to see the man again.

The people were friendly for the most part and they generally greeted him with a smile before going back to their business. It seemed that this village was used to a decent amount of tourists. One elderly woman asked if he was staying at the Castle Arms Inn [1]. When he told her he wasn�t, she still recommended the restaurant at the inn and the Hambleton Ale brewed locally that he could try there.

He took the woman�s advice and dined at the Castle Arms Inn. The food had that home-cooked taste and it was delicious. It was certainly a change from what he had been eating the last few months. It was good to taste the food of his homeland again. When Harry stepped into the pub connected to the restaurant later that evening, the level of noise threw him off. It wasn�t absurdly loud but there were more people there than he had originally expected.

The pub was cozy. A group of younger men around his age hung around the bar while the older men sat around the tables. All the way to the side of the room was the fireplace. It was not lit since it was well into the summer. The occupants of the pub only gave him quick curious glances before turning back to their companions.

Harry ordered ale at the counter and went through the usual introductions with the bartender. The bartender was curious as to why he was staying in the castle. Harry thought it best to best to stick with the truth and explained that he had been hired to help make the castle inhabitable again. The bartender nodded in a gesture of great interest before explaining that everyone in the village was curious about the commotion up at the castle lately. It was abandoned for nearly twenty years now and no one had been sure if it was still under the control of the Snape family. The bartender told Harry about how the castle had almost become deserted after the last Snape went off to boarding school in Scotland. Harry did confirm for the bartender that the Snapes had moved back into the old castle and that it wasn�t in as bad a shape as one would think.

The bartender moved away to deal with some of the other patrons but several others approached him about his experience at the castle. Harry was as honest as he could be. He was surprised when several of the older men were able to describe Snape as a child in detail.

One of the men recounted the incident where Snape tried to climb one of the lemon trees by the Avenue but fell and broke his arm. Snape was then confined to the castle grounds for weeks afterwards. Harry suspected that it was to keep the villagers from becoming suspicious if they should see a mended arm. He just sat and listened to the men argue and reminisce around him.

�Strange lad that one.�

�Yes. Rather precocious for his age.�

�What was his name again? It was rather severe sounding. Septimius, is it?�

�No, no. That was his dad�s name.�

�Severus,� Harry supplied.

�That�s it!�

�Didn�t he have a sister?�

�Oh no, poor Fiona died giving birth to the lad.�

�But there were another lass living with them.�

�Oh, wasn�t she sent to France for schooling, eh?�

�Never mind, that family was a strange one. Bloody nobles.�

The evening flew by for Harry. He listened avidly as the men gave him long lectures on the history of the village and a bit about the Snape family as well. Harry would never have thought that Snape�s family was once so intertwined with the Muggle Ton [2]. It was strange that Snape joined the Death Eaters when he had lived among Muggles for so much of his life. Around ten o�clock, Harry said his good-byes.

Harry stretched after he exited the pub. Some of the other patrons left at the same time. They bid him a good night and most of them headed in the direction opposite of where Harry would be going. He turned around to walk back to the castle and nearly ran into someone.

�Bloody hell!� Harry exclaimed as he came face to face with Abraham, who seemed to come out of nowhere. �Don�t do that to me!�

Abraham simply chuckled at Harry�s indignation and stepped closer to him. Harry wasn�t drunk but he was a bit tipsy, so he leaned on Abraham�s shoulder for support. Abraham laid a hand on Harry�s forearm as the older man led him down the road.

�I�m fine,� Harry protested at the treatment.

�I�ll just walk you part of the way. You don�t look very steady on your feet, Cedric.�

Harry resigned himself to accepting Abraham�s help. The close contact with the other man made him feel uncomfortable. The same dark emotions as last time resurfaced. Harry shivered and Abraham draped his overcoat over Harry�s shoulder. He simply stared down at the road. Harry didn�t know how to tell Abraham that he wasn�t shivering from the cold but from the proximity of Abraham�s presence. He thought it best to say nothing at all in the end.

There was something slightly different about Abraham that night, Harry didn�t know what it was but Abraham seemed more vivacious than last time. The moonlight and streetlights accentuated the curve of the older man�s voluptuous red lips and smoothed away the slight wrinkles at his temples. Harry caught a glimpse of sharpened teeth peeking out.

They walked together in silence until they reached the spot where the Avenue met Back Street. The castle was just a few hundred feet away and he could see the light shining through some of the windows. To their left was the ruin of the wall that opened up a graveled path framed by shrubbery. It led to a picturesque view of the ruins. Abraham must have noticed where his attention was.

�That�s the Kissing Gate. The locals call it Tittlem Corner. It�s a favorite haunt for courting couples,� Abraham�s arm slid around his waist. �May I tempt you with a tour?�

Harry stepped away quickly. �No, thanks, I can make up way up to the castle from here.� He ripped the coat off his shoulders and held it out to Abraham.

�No,� the older man shook his head. Abraham closed the distance between them and stroked across Harry�s chin and down the length of his neck and Harry could only shiver when that cold hand settled on his shoulder. To his horror, he found his body unable to move away from the intoxicating touch. �We can�t have you freezing to death, now can we, Cedric?� Abraham whispered to Harry, his lips barely grazed Harry�s earlobe. Harry couldn�t suppress the moan rising in his throat.

Harry blinked and Abraham was gone. It was as if the man had faded away into the pale yellow moonlight. He blinked again and tried to recompose himself. Had that all been a drunken hallucination? Perhaps that alcohol had been stronger than he thought. It wasn�t a hallucination though. The heavy woolen coat draped over his frame was an indication of the reality- or surreality of what he had just experienced.

Harry drew the coat tighter around his body. It was strangely comforting and he couldn�t help but feel the article of clothing was familiar. He breathed in deeply and found the coat smelled of sage. His world began to tip over and spin. He shook his head to clear it and continued along the path.

He really needed a good night�s sleep now.

Harry stumbled over something large. He squinted to see the dark form- a body- lying on the round. He knelt down by the body.

�Are you okay?�

He received no answer. He prodded the body- now obviously female - gently but received no reaction. Harry was beginning to really worry. He rolled the girl onto her back and nearly fell back on his ass. The body was cold, chilled like the dead. The girl- no more than a child- was still in her nightgown. Her delicate face had a cherubic quality to it with her sunny golden hair. Her eyes were closed as if in sleep, hiding their color from the world.

Harry searched for a pulse but found none.

*To Be Continued*

[1] Castle Arm Inn, website at http://members.aol.com/castlearms/

[2] The Ton refers to the nobles of British society. However, it is particular to that of the Victorian era and does not apply today.

Sorry this took so long. Hopefully, the computer problems that seem to be plaguing both myself and my betas will be all better soon. Thanks ahead of time for all reviews!

Happy Holidays and I hope you all had a great Christmas!
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Life Eternal