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Inter Vivos	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 42948 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter Thirty�Snake

�� Harry sat
alone in the silence of their bedroom, his head bowed and his hands folded on
his knees. He breathed regularly, but still with a rasping sound to it. He
wondered if he had made himself sick, or if he had been crying without
realizing it.

�� But the
wonder was distant. Everything had been distant since the moment he had killed
Seamus.

�� Someone
pounded on the door, hard enough to make it shudder in its frame. �Harry!� Draco yelled, sounding as though
someone had set his best robes on fire. �Let me in now.� His voice descended at the end, which made it a greater
threat. �If you don�t, you�ll spend the next six months regretting it.�

�� At least he didn�t say �the rest of my life,�
Harry thought, pushing his hand through his hair. He felt his scar and winced. He has some originality in his threats. Or
maybe he knows that I�m going to regret Seamus�s death for the rest of my life
and don�t have room for another regret like that right now.

�� But he
couldn�t let Draco in right now, even though Draco had begun a litany of curses
and spells that ought to remove the locking charm Harry had placed on the door.
Maybe they even would, except that Sirius had taught him this locking charm
specially, saying it was one that the Marauders had developed at Hogwarts and
no one else knew. Every time someone managed to pierce a shield of its
protection, it would shift and grow another.

�� He couldn�t
let Draco in right now because he needed to think and to settle his own
reaction before anyone else could force one on him. He lay back, letting his
muscles relax, as limp and loose as rags, and looked at the ceiling.

�� The
temptation to curl up around the wound and push everyone away, the way he had
when Seamus burned his things, was present. It would be easier. It would numb
the guilt, because he would be trying so hard not to feel anything. It would
actually reassure Ron and Hermione, because they would have seen this reaction
before and they would understand it. And Snape and Draco would recognize it,
too.

�� But they broke through that shell once
before.

�� And Harry
wasn�t sure he could stand up to another determined assault like that now.

�� He crossed
his arms over his stomach and closed his eyes. All right. So the other choice
was to admit the emotion, and live with the guilt, and distrust all the words
that Draco would whisper to him about its not being his fault, because it was his fault. Harry, and no one else,
had cast the Conflagration Curse.

�� And the worst
of it�

�� The worst
of it was not knowing.

�� Maybe he�d
done the right thing, and Voldemort had only told the truth when he bragged
about crushing Seamus�s spirit. Maybe he hadn�t, and there was some bit of
Seamus still trapped and whimpering behind those red eyes, even if it wasn�t
anything like the personality that Voldemort had showed him. Maybe that bit of
Seamus had existed, but been so traumatized that death had been a kindness and
he could never have been healed or brought back to normal.

�� The point,
the problem, was that Harry didn�t know. Draco
could say all he liked about guilt and how it wasn�t murder, the same thing
he�d started saying the moment Harry explained, in a monotone, what happened.
But he didn�t know if it was or not. He didn�t know if Harry had killed an
innocent or not.

�� Snape could
be emotionlessly dry about the costs of war, but the hand he had put on Harry�s
shoulder had still trembled, and he hadn�t taken his eyes away from the pool of
ashes. Harry understood why. There was another of his students dead there,
another future cut off, another thing the war had cost.

�� Snape might
be much happier that Harry was alive than he would have been if Harry had died,
but he still lamented that the death had to happen at all.

�� And to top
it all off, Lucius Malfoy was dead, killed by Snape, who would be hurting, too,
and his death would hurt Draco and Narcissa. (It was an effort to think of that
cold woman by her first name, and Harry would never call her that to her face,
of course, but he thought it and went on thinking it, because what was that
difficulty compared to what she was suffering? And it might remind him to be a
little more human towards her). So there was more than one grief in the house.

�� That cut
out any notion of curling around the wound and shoving other people away. Snape
and Draco didn�t have the mental energy right now to punch through his walls,
and they shouldn�t have to try.

�� Harry
Potter, so help me Merlin��

�� No. He
would have to live with the guilt, though right now it felt like it would cut
him apart to try, and he would have to help Snape and Draco with their pain.
Maybe that would help him cope with his pain, too. He didn�t know, because he�d
never been through a time when they were all hurting like this at once.
Usually, he was either trying to keep his own injuries quiet or helping someone
else.

�� Harry.� This time, Draco sounded
defeated, and Harry had stood up and taken three steps towards the door before
he thought about it.

�� It hurts us even more to be apart during
this.

�� Decision
made, Harry opened the door. Draco, slumped against the wall in the corridor,
looked up at him with dull eyes and a feverish cast to his skin. He didn�t even
notice that the peeling paper had coated his robes with dust, which told Harry
how serious the case was. And tears came into Draco�s eyes as Harry watched.

�� He knelt
down and wrapped his arms around Draco. Draco�s hands came up and clutched at
his shoulders, fingers clamping into and scratching his skin. Harry winced, but
considered how small that pain was compared to Draco�s agony, and said nothing,
running his own hands up and down Draco�s spine.

�� He was
your father,� Harry whispered. �Even if you despised him, and even if you know
that he would have killed you and your mother if he got the chance, he was your
father. It�s all right to mourn him.�

�� What you
did was not murder,� Draco whispered
back, sounding almost vicious in his desire to convince Harry. He stood up, but
swayed as though he would have trouble supporting himself if he moved away. Luckily,
he didn�t try. He leaned on Harry instead and panted against his neck. A moment
later, that skin was damp, and Harry was glad Draco was finally crying. �Finnigan
wasn�t alive anymore. Or it was a mercy killing, at the very least. You killed
him in self-defense.�

�� Harry
didn�t think his rambles made much sense, but that was all right. No one needed
them to make sense at the moment.

Together, they staggered sideways
and into the bedroom, and fell onto the bed. Harry pulled one arm free so that
he could use his wand to shut the door. Then he curled himself up around Draco
and used his hands and body warmth and sympathy to heal Draco as much as he
could.

And when his own tears came, he
felt less self-conscious than he might have.

*

Draco woke slowly. He was cramped,
and the skin of his face pulled when he blinked, dry with too many tears. His
mouth felt and likely smelled horrible. If he could get his right hand free of
the weight pinning it, then he would cast a Breath-Freshening Charm.

But the weight pinning it didn�t
shift obligingly like a pillow when Draco tried to move his hand, and he gave
an incoherent grumble and opened his eyes.

Harry lay beside him, his arms
around Draco, Draco�s arm beneath him. He had one leg slung over Draco�s hip,
in a position that probably made it look as if they�d fallen asleep intending
to have sex. His mouth was open, and his breath no particularly sweet thing,
either, to judge by the gusts blowing in Draco�s face. He snored. His eyes were
crusted with sleep and red with crying, and six good Brush Charms wouldn�t have
got his hair in order.

Draco leaned in anyway, until his
cheek rested against Harry�s. Harry went on breathing, slowly, peacefully.
Draco hadn�t seen him sleep this well since the Dark Lord had sent Creevey�s
heart, and he hoped that meant that Harry had felt some easing in his pain.

I
hope so, he thought, and shifted nearer, closing his eyes so that he could
shut out the world and rest with Harry a little longer. Otherwise, if it was just him comforting me, then he�s forgetting all
about himself for the sake of someone else again, and I don�t like that. No
lover of mine is going to die as a noble self-sacrifice.

Maybe he breathed too hard as he
thought about that. At any rate, Harry started, snuffled, and opened his eyes.

He blinked blearily for so long
that Draco wondered if he�d go back to sleep without realizing he�d woken up.
He did that sometimes (and indignantly disbelieved Draco when Draco taunted him
about it). Then he raised a hand to swipe at his eyes and mumble something
about glasses, and Draco caught the hand and stuck Harry�s finger in his mouth
before he thought.

Harry had never moved so fast before, and it had never been so
unplanned. Draco had lots of fantasies, lots of thoughts to occupy his head
when he�d failed to make progress with his plan to kill the Horcrux in Harry
and when Granger was babbling on to him about the sorts of spiritual bonds
she�d discovered, nothing of which applied to the bond between him and the
Elder Wand. By the time he got Harry alone again, he was always anxious to put
the fantasies into motion.

But this time, Harry scrambled and
moved over him and tugged off the clothes they�d fallen asleep in, and then he
was locking Draco�s cock in his mouth and his thighs around Draco�s head, and
Draco made a tentative grab at Harry�s erection with his mouth. Harry bucked
harshly when he tried it and Draco gagged, but the marvelous feeling radiating from
his groin gave him more than enough to think about.

It was so messy. Harry�s mouth around him, teeth coated with sleep-fuzz,
hands working Draco�s legs and balls almost harshly. The sweat streaking down
Harry�s hips and dripping into Draco�s eyes. The way Harry almost crushed his
face even when Draco gave up the idea of sucking him until this was done. And the
way Draco panted and twisted and yanked at Harry�s hair, scattering threads of
it all across the blankets.

And the way he shot, of course, and
the way Harry, unprepared, coughed and dripped spunk on the sheets.

Draco scrambled down and around,
banging his knee into Harry�s ear, and kissed him before Harry had swallowed
completely. It was�an interesting taste. Not too different from what he�d
swallowed of Harry�s, really.

He fastened his own mouth in place
before Harry could say something stupid, which he seemed ready to, given the
awed way he was staring at Draco. And then Harry arched and writhed and grabbed
a pillow hard enough to score several lines down the cloth and send a few
feathers flying, and that was all
right, more than all right.

Draco tried to give Harry the
message he wanted to speak, the message every flick of Harry�s tongue had
conveyed to him, the message sweat and spunk and even blood, if Harry scratched
his head hard enough to draw that, gave.

We�re
alive.

*

�� Severus
could think of no way to get the information he wanted without asking. But he
hesitated to ask, because it would mean risking the trust he and Harry had
built back up between them.

On
the other hand, you have invaded his mind multiple times, painfully, and he
still trusts you. If you can do it without pain, and with his permission, why
wouldn�t he give you what you ask for? You only have to convince him that you
need it.

And that would mean�speaking words
that Severus did not think he could have spoken to Lily. Words of weakness.

Harry sat across the kitchen table
from him, eating breakfast, though the time was more appropriate to a late
lunch, and utterly oblivious that Severus needed to ask him anything. His eyes
were shuttered, and the line of his mouth burned. Severus was not foolish
enough to think he had recovered from what he had done yesterday, but he
recognized that determination, the same determination that had driven Harry
through his healing from the wounds the Dark Lord had inflicted on him and kept
him alive during his relatives� abuse. He wouldn�t survive unscathed, but he
would survive.

Outwardly.

And that might be enough for
Granger and Weasley and even for Draco, but it wouldn�t be enough for Severus,
who knew too much about the inner workings of the mind.

�What�s the matter?�

Obviously he had waited too long
and gazed too obviously, because Harry was watching him now, mouth slightly
open in his concern. Severus gestured to the piece of half-chewed food hanging
off his lip, and Harry closed his mouth and swallowed with a slightly guilty
expression. But he said, �What�s the matter?� again.

Severus had forgotten how
disconcerting it could be to have that dogged determination turned on him.

�I want�� Severus said, and then
his pride literally choked him. He set his cup of tea down on the table with
what he knew was unnecessary force. That alone would tell Harry something was
wrong, as he had become so much more observant in the last few years, but at
least it would not give him the specifics of the situation.

Severus had begun to wonder if
giving the specifics of the situation was impossible.

Harry stood up and came around the
table to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. Severus blinked. Because he had
grown so much used to being taller than his students, it inevitably took him by
surprise when he realized how tall they grew in their seventh year. But Harry
stood there now, and looked at him, long and earnestly, and Severus wondered,
exactly, which of the many blows he had sustained had turned him from a child
into a man.

�Ask for it.� Harry�s voice was
gentle but deep, as if he understood exactly what it cost Severus to humble
himself this way.

Severus laid a hand on Harry�s hand
on his shoulder, and then looked at the far wall. He had grown more at ease
with Harry, but that did not matter, not in this particular case. He still
could not look him in the eye whilst he made his request. �I wish to look into
your mind, to determine what wound your killing of Finnigan may have caused.�

Harry considered it in silence.
Twice Severus heard a slight snick as if he had opened his mouth, perhaps to
say something stupid. Then he closed it again and stood thinking.

Strangely, the longer he thought
about, the more Severus�s impatient agony eased. At least Harry was taking this
seriously. And that made it more likely that he understood not only how gentle
Severus would try to be with Legilimency�instead of trusting him foolishly or
deciding in a snap that he would be harsh�but what the question had cost
Severus.

�All right,� Harry said at last.
�If you�ll lower your barriers and let me use Legilimency to see what Lucius�s
death did to you. And tell me if I�m hurting you, of course,� he added quickly.

It had been years since Severus had
wished this intently that Lily was still alive. And this time, he did it
because he wished she might see the man her son had become.

*

Snape�s face was dark as he looked
at Harry, looked into Harry. Once, he
shook his head as though he disagreed with what he�d seen, but he didn�t say
anything, so Harry couldn�t be sure. All he
knew was that the memories of Seamus�s death, mixed up with the memories of
what he�d done and said and what the spirit possessing him had done and said,
were cascading through his brain right now.

Harry sat with his hands clenched,
his breath noisy. But the guilt didn�t eat him quite so vigorously this
morning.

Who
knew, he thought, the astonishment strong enough that he wondered if it was
clouding Snape�s view of his other emotions, that deciding to share the pain with someone else would actually reduce
it that much?

Snape pulled free at last. Then he
paced back and forth in front of the lab table a few times. Harry blinked when
he noticed how close Snape�s robes came to upsetting several filled vials. He�d
never seen Snape that careless.

That�s
how much he cares about you, his thoughts told him, and he didn�t even need
to be embarrassed, since Snape wasn�t in his head anymore to hear the thought.
He did suppress a happy wriggle when
Snape suddenly spun around and frowned at him.

�You were murmuring that you had killed
Finnigan when we found you,� he said. �That is certainly true, though I think
of the Dark Lord�s as the only spirit we have known to inhabit him.� He took a step nearer, staring the way he
did when he suspected someone of cheating on an exam. �But I did not realize
that you thought you had murdered him.�

Harry took a deep breath. He had
avoided having this confrontation with Draco so far because their emotions had
worn them out last night, and then their pleasure had worn them out this
morning. In fact, Harry thought Draco was still up in bed, asleep. He�d only
got up himself because his stomach had pinched him so viciously.

But he was about to have it with
Snape, it appeared, and there was no point in hiding the truth from someone
who�d just been in your head.

�The point,� he said, �is that we
don�t know. Maybe I killed only
Voldemort, and that means that my guilt is misplaced. But maybe I killed
Seamus, too.� He stood up, because this was one argument he didn�t want to have
sitting down. �And if I did that, then I killed an innocent, and that was
murder.�

�He had spent six years trying to
attack you,� Snape said, like it was inarguable. �He was in possession of a
Horcrux. He was not innocent.� He
spat out the word as if it had personally offended him by being in his mouth.

�Was Draco guilty because he
trusted Moody and offered me an accidental Portkey, then?� Harry countered.

�That was Draco,� Snape said. �This
was Finnigan.�

Harry had to laugh. Sometimes, even
though he�d changed his mind about Harry and a lot of other things, Snape�s
prejudices were just too visible. �You might as well say that Draco�s a
Slytherin and deserves forgiveness, whilst Seamus was a Gryffindor and didn�t.�

�House affiliation has nothing to
do with this,� Snape said unconvincingly. �And I am most disturbed to hear you
speaking of that attempted murderer by his first name. Have you forgotten that
he tried to kill Granger, as well, and would probably have killed your other Gryffindor friends if they had not been
quicker than he was?�

You�d
forgotten, until you needed it to convince me, Harry thought. For you, his crimes against me were enough.

He shook off that oddly warming
thought and went on. �I haven�t forgotten that,� he said. Snape arched an
eyebrow, but Harry plowed on. �But what if
he was a tool of Voldemort, and didn�t want to do any of that? I had to think that. I had to think of that as a possibility.
And I�ll be tormented for the rest of my life by the possibility that I
murdered him.�

�You did not murder him,� Snape began again.

�But there�s the possibility that
Voldemort had taken over completely, and it was self-defense.� Harry shrugged
helplessly, holding his hands out. �So I don�t know either way, and even as I
admit my guilt, I think that maybe I don�t need to worry about it. I want to
keep the possibility of murder alive because that means I won�t become quite as
callous and prone to hurling curses next time.�

�You are not callous,� Snape said,
laying an equal emphasis on each word.

�But I could become that way,�
Harry said, and lifted a hand when Snape started to reply. �You won�t argue me
out of my guilt. What I want to know is if you saw it crippling me. I�ve tried
to master it and go on in spite of it, but if it�s affecting my actions��

�It did not cripple your actions.�
Snape rushed through the words as if he hated speaking them, even though that
had been the reason he�d wanted to see into Harry�s head in the first place. Obviously, Harry thought wryly, he�s thought of something else that he can
pin me down on. �Why did you go into the house alone?�

�Because I didn�t want to end up
distrusting you more than ever,� Harry said, �which I would have if you had
killed Seamus before I thought it was time. And I also didn�t want to end up
hating myself, which I would have done if Seamus had been completely evil and
hurt one of you before he died.�

�It was insanely dangerous,� Snape
hissed. �You must value your own life more.�

�But can�t you see that that�s what
I�m trying to do?� Harry asked simply. Snape turned on him a skeptical,
piercing look of such power that Harry rushed on, trying to justify himself
even though he�d promised himself that he wouldn�t. �I�m trying to live with
the guilt. I�m trying to make plans, and live with my own deficiencies�which
trusting Seamus too much and you not enough would be. I�m trying to take steps
so that certain situations never arise.� He took a deep breath. �Sometimes, the
steps are dangerous.�

Snape didn�t snap at him
immediately. He watched Harry with deeply hooded eyes instead. Harry looked
back, wondering if the words sounded as adult to Snape as they did to him. He
was trying to be mature and grown-up.
It was just very hard when everything he could do was dangerous, when they were
in a bloody war.

Oddly, Snape gave a single nod and
then sat down in the chair he had earlier placed next to the lab table. �Give
me a moment to lower my Occlumency shields,� he said.

Harry took a little breath and
hugged himself. He�s not going to keep
telling me I�m stupid. He�s not going to harp on this mistake as a mistake.

He�ll
probably take his vengeance in more subtle ways, but at least he isn�t harping
on it right now, which would only increase my guilt.

Inevitably, he was still a bit
clumsy with the Legilimency, and Snape winced a time or two. But Harry saw
enough to tell him that Snape accepted Lucius�s death as a casualty of war, and
that he had long since ceased to think of the man as a friend. His greater
purpose had been to prevent pain to Draco and Narcissa, and he had succeeded in
doing that.

Really,
Harry thought, as he stepped out of Snape�s mind and nodded thankfully to
him before turning for the door, he�s a
bloody great hypocrite to scold me for not minding the pain to myself as long
as others don�t suffer. He does the exact same thing.

�Where are you going?� Snape asked.
Perhaps he had picked up something in Harry�s manner that told him all wasn�t
well, or perhaps he hadn�t been as convinced by Harry�s little speech after all
as Harry would have liked him to be.

�To confront Draco about the same
things I just confronted you about.� Harry shot him a wry smile over his
shoulder. �Wish me luck?�

Snape did not smile. �And after
that?�

�After that,� Harry said, �to work
on a plan that will lure Voldemort to me and let me kill Nagini without dying
myself. Assuming that Draco really has worked out a plan to kill the Horcrux
I�m carrying.�

*

Draco opened his eyes with a gasp.
His eyes were clotted with sleep, he felt sweaty and sticky, his stomach hurt from
hunger�

And he knew what he had been
missing in the bond between the Elder Wand and himself.

*

qwerty: Thank you!

Spicyegglplant: I enjoy Harry as
Snape�s son stories, but I�m not sure I could come up with a plot original
enough for one.

MewMew2: Yes. Much later than he
did in canon.

Sneakyfox: Yes. And since Harry was
friends with Seamus, he doesn�t see his death the same way Snape and Draco do.

Thrnbrooke: Here it is.

rafiq: No, he doesn�t. The shard of
Voldemort that was possessing Seamus was not the same as the shard of soul
currently left in his body. (I think we can take it for granted that Voldemort
doesn�t know what his Horcruxes are doing all the time, because there�s no sign
in canon that he knew about Harry destroying the diary).

SP777: Thank you!
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Inter Vivos