Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Fading Scars	By : silmelinde Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Snape Views: 8072 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter List
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Moving
A greying witch swept outside like a spitting whirlwind. “Who let you into my yard?” she yelled, sticking out a barrel stomach at the intruder with the hands on her hips. “Get out!”
“Sorry, Mam.”
The foreign politeness temporarily stilled a string of curses. The witch swept his relatively decent clothes with an evaluating look, estimating what she could get out of it. “Unless you’re here to rent the room,” she added mistrustfully, nonetheless without lowering the militant stance. Those well dressed typically didn’t associate with her kind.
Harry regarded the decrepit structure split into two floors, doubtful there was enough room even for a cricket. The first floor where she lived was unlikely to be rented. The likelihood of her owning a different place wasn’t high.
“The room on the second floor?” he prompted without giving away that he knew nothing.
A bushy wart on her upper lip shot up as her face stretched into an imitation of a smile. “A fine room it is! The best in the house. And the room neighbour, I figure, will be to your kind’s liking, a professor of some sort. He’s never home anyway, so you can consider the shared living room as good as yours! We can sign and I’ll let you see the room right away!”
“No!” Harry vividly pictured Snape’s reaction to his declaration to live a wall away from him. “This apartment suits my needs without checking. I’ll sign the rent agreement as soon as possible.”
“Will you now?” the witch crowed, digging around the wide apron pockets until she produced a soiled page of the renting terms. “The first payment is only six months in advance.” Her mouth was fully opened now in a grin that revealed rotten teeth. She grabbed the visitor under the arm like a spider an unsuspecting fly and dragged him into her lair.
The professor lived in this wretched place? In spite of the greasy remarks in childhood, Harry associated the man of intellectual pursuits with a far more decent environment. The discovery shocked him. Harry ducked to avoid packs of herbs and stuffed nets hanging from the ceiling, and avoided touching the walls that were too stained to distinguish their colour.
“How much do I owe you?” he asked while the old hag dug around for ink and quill, greedy to sign the agreement before the sucker came to his senses.
“Only what’s fair… only what’s fair!” she assured, estimating the maximum she could rip off. The ink sloshed over the rim as she set it on the lame table in front of the wizard at last naming the price trice of what she had been asking for.
Bill Smith, Harry signed, convinced he couldn’t trust her with a fake knut, much less his real name. The witch grabbed the paper and it disappeared in her pocket.
“When can I move in?”
“You’ll get the key as soon as you bring the money.”
“I’ll be here tomorrow,” Harry stated, moving outside where the air smelled less like the arachnid’s stinky armpit or at least not worse. He needed to schedule an appointment next morning to Gringotts. “Good day, Madam.”
It was just as well that he found other accommodations. The rent for the house he took up near the club where he taught Quidditch was running out at about the same time as his contract. Temporarily returning to the Grimmauld Place didn’t feel like a desirable perspective since the house had a haunting look about it. He hadn’t the heart either to sell it, nor the nerve to continue living where every object mourned the most important people he lost. He stayed there only when he had nowhere to go.
The landlord expressed regret at his leave when Harry presented a two weeks notice and even offered to lower the price. He was a good man. Harry wished him luck with the next tenants.
The packing didn’t take long. All his stuff still fitted into the old school trunk. Not that he ever had a chance to accumulate many possessions, while he was traversing the country as the Auror.
The following day, Harry tucked the firebolt under his arm and with a final glance at the vast, green hills caressed by the setting sun apparated to the Slugmoore Avenue that was to serve as his new home.
The landlady was already waiting. She tossed a key at the new tenant, no longer deeming it was worth being polite as soon as the money disappeared in her pocket without return. Cradling the cool strip between his fingers like it was a fragile link to the man who knew so much about his past Harry climbed the stairs with a beating heart. There was hardly enough room to put down his trunk as he inserted the key into the graining keyhole. A wave of magic enveloped his senses. Of course, Snape must have warded the door against the unwanted intrusions, given the neighbourhood even a fluffy bunny that suffered no paranoia would have. The door flew open and a wand pressed between his chin and the chest.
"Potter!” The experience taught Harry to remain still, giving the man time to consider the next action. The wand lowered; however, the venom spilled into every syllable.
“I see you're no longer content stalking people, you must break into their households as well."
"I'm sorry I've alarmed you needlessly, Professor, but with the paid rent and the key this can hardly be called a break in."
Snape glanced at the firebolt inclined against the wall along with the trunk, and paled in fury.
"I demand that you leave at once!"
It must have been easier to stand up to Voldemort's army than not to give into demands of the man who had been a figure of authority in the past. It was harder yet to maintain composure.
"That would be difficult since I intend to live here at least until you hear me out," Harry explained far more calmly than he felt. He caught the briefest glimpse of panic like that of a cornered animal and then Snape exploded.
"I refuse! I don't care what twisted prank you’re playing, you have no right to show up on my doorstep to harass me after I've paid every debt! You can choose to live anywhere you want, so don't tell me this was your desirable alternative! How dare you disturb me when I want nothing to do with the past? You have the gall to believe that everything must carter to your wants! That never changed for your arrogant family!"
Snape was shaking as he yelled at him. In the past this may have aroused anger, but the reaction only made Harry feel sorry that he was giving into his selfish wants just to speak with the man, yet he refused to leave. He would have never achieved anything without being firm in his actions even if they were dictated by instincts and the gut feeling.
“Can’t you hoodlums be quiet?!” The first floor door burst open and the landlady swept out. The broom she waved around looked positively militant. “If I hear one more sound I’ll throw you two out to the gutter!”
Harry grabbed his belongings and decisively stepped inside to escape the wrathful torrent of shrieks. Snape backed up instinctively. The door snapped shut, cutting off all outside noise. The corridor was too narrow to fit two people side by side, especially the one carrying the luggage, thus as he walked in Snape had to move back. The turbulent outflow of emotions subsided, followed by a far more ominous silence. The Potions Master was regarding him so intently like he was deciding which part of his body he was going to pickle in a jar and sell at his shop first.
“So, which room is yours?”
“The one you will never set your foot in!” Snape hissed, turning abruptly as if to say, ‘be a fool’ to disappear behind a door at the other end of the house by the living room.
Harry followed and set his possessions down in the cramped space where they barely fit. The quarters he was to share with Snape had just enough space for a worn couch set along a table transfigured to be shorter, a tall lamp and a rug. The central area had two doors that led to the bedrooms on the right, a bathroom across and a narrow kitchen without a door that only had a stove, fridge and counters. Every item had a look about it like it had seen better days during the last century, but they were kept neat. The interior had a stark contrast to the dump like outward appearance of the building. The simplicity of the set up was even cozy. It wasn’t the word he associated with Snape, but surely the effort to keep the shabby place presentable wasn’t due to the landlady’s effort.
Since the Potions Master retreated and booby trapped his door, Harry tried his new room, expecting no heart to heart conversation over a steaming cup of tea. A dour smell enough to knock out a Hippogriff hit him in the face as Harry beheld ‘the bestest accommodations’ in the house. Not convinced he wouldn’t fall through the rotten boards, Harry probed the floor’s integrity before fully putting his weight on it, discovering that it nonetheless was more trustworthy than it looked. The only window had a black layer of muck caked across it solidly enough to ensure the most diligent house elf would throw down the cleaning rag in frustration and stomp on it.
There was no furniture. After squinting around with a lit wand, Harry Spotted a protruding handle that most likely was a part of a wall bed. The first tug yielded no result, nor had the second. Harry grabbed the handle with both hands and braced his foot against the wall, pulling as hard as he could. The resounding crash was deafening. Stars exploded around him as the structure gave way abruptly. Some metal piece hit him over the head and he landed on his back under the pile of bulk, coughing as a thick cloud of dust and moths filled the room and choked him. Voldemort hadn’t come closer than the ruins of a bed to killing him.
The pile of rubble that pinned him to the floor lifted and a stream of air came into the room as the window burst open. In the haze of a thick layer of dust settled on his eyelashes, Harry spotted a dark silhouette leaning over him.
"Must you make a show of a task as simple as entering a bedroom?" Snape accused. "I thought we were being attacked by a cave troll." The implication lay heavy that trolls typically never visited his quiet neighbourhood and it was Harry's presence that solely made the probability of attack possible along with a legion of chimaeras and flesh-eating slugs.
"The cave troll got nothing versus this bed," Harry rasped. Testing his ribs for integrity, he sat up slowly. A couple of moths sprinted away once he shook some dust out of his hair.
"You never knew how to pick your enemies properly," now that Potter was no longer suffocating, the venom in Snape's voice was back.
"No, but I suppose I've done well having good people who come to help in an hour of need. Sometimes, though, I deeply regret missing the chance to tell them directly how much I appreciate them looking out for me."
The dust made his eyes water, blurring the world as much as he wanted to look the man when he said it. Had the potions master believed his sincerity? A board creaked mournfully under a foot and a dog began to howl on the street now that the sound came in through the open window.
"Do try to refrain from dying by choking on a moth, least the Auror's think it was my doing," Snape hissed at him and swept out of the room once more.
Harry got up. The night was peeking through the broken window. Trying to find a comfortable position on the living room couch that night he considered whether it was a mistake to insist so strongly on getting Snape's help with the cure, especially since at first it hadn't been his main motivation. For every step he took to reach out to the man, the potions master took two back. And yet, in spite of every threat he made, Snape hadn't been able to remain indifferent. Like a silent guardian he appeared immediately when the crash came and that was enough reason to stay. The demands to be left alone no longer rang sincere, overshadowed by the words Harry overheard in the pensieve that haunted him - always.
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Fading Scars