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Voldemort had raised his wand. His head was still tilted to one side, like a curious child, wondering what would happen if he proceeded. Harry looked back into the red eyes, and wanted it to happen now, quickly, while he could still stand, before he lost control, before he betrayed fear —
He saw the mouth move and a flash of green light, and everything was gone.
He lay face down, listening to the silence. He was perfectly alone. Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there. He was not perfectly sure that he was there himself.
A long time later, or maybe no time at all, it came to him that he must exist, must be more than disembodied thought, because he was lying, definitely lying, on some surface. Therefore he had a sense of touch, and the thing against which he lay existed too.
…He sat up. His body appeared unscathed. He touched his face. He was not wearing glasses anymore.
Then a noise reached him through the unformed nothingness that surrounded him: the small soft thumpings of something that flapped, flailed, and struggled. It was a pitiful noise, yet also slightly indecent.
…All was hushed and still, except for those odd thumping and whimpering noises coming from somewhere close by in the mist…
He recoiled. He had spotted the thing that was making the noises. It had the form of a small, naked child, curled on the ground, its skin raw and rough, flayed-looking, and it lay shuddering under a seat where it had been left, unwanted, stuffed out of sight, struggling for breath.
He was afraid of it. Small and fragile and wounded though it was, he did not want to approach it. Nevertheless he drew slowly nearer, ready to jump back at any moment. Soon he stood near enough to touch it, yet he could not bring himself to do it. He felt like a coward. He ought to comfort it, but it repulsed him.
“You cannot help.”
He spun around. Albus Dumbledore was walking toward him, sprightly and upright, wearing sweeping robes of midnight blue…
“But you’re dead,” said Harry.
Dumbledore’s eyes twinkled in that way that made Harry feel like there was something he didn’t know. “I am, and I am not,” he replied cryptically.
“Am I dead?” Harry asked quietly, too exhausted to think about more of Dumbledore’s riddles today. He looked around himself, thinking about the muggle concept of purgatory.
“Oh, very much so.” It was stated plainly, no inflection, no emotion, and when Harry looked back up to Dumbledore, his expression had shifted to one that looked blank and unfamiliar on the old man’s face. “However, I meet you here, in this form, to offer you a choice.”
This form? Harry struggled to comprehend, but Dumbledore (not-Dumbledore?) was still speaking.
“You chose to die, and you chose it nobly, but more importantly, you chose it as the Master of Death, of me.”
A painfully hysterical “HA,” rang through the misty void, and it took Harry a moment to realize it was him, a desperate burst of exasperated shock wrenched from his chest, taking the wind out of him.
Unfazed, probably-not-Dumbledore looked at Harry expectantly.
“You’re not dead, you’re death ?” was all he could manage, head swimming with the surrealness, and wondering if his personal hell might just be eternity in the void, subject to his former headmaster’s plot twists until he was well and truly mad.
“Precisely. I am at your service, and I must ask you once more, to choose.”
Harry just stared, having mostly given up on understanding what was happening here. Death-Dumbledore just continued on.
“We stand in a realm between the strings of time and reality, a liminal space between being and not being, and your options are thus:” as he spoke, shimmering lines of magic came into being in the air high above them glowing with varied intensity, like golden strings held taut, tangled in a web to form a messy sort of bridge. “You can choose the void of not-being, where your consciousness will remain with those you’ve lost, and your body and magic will return to the earth from whence it came.”
A shiny wooden door materialized beside them as though summoned by Death’s words. “There is no shame in this choice, as it is the fate that comes eventually to all, and you have earned elysium through your suffering and your sacrifice.” Golden filigree curled invitingly over the door’s surface, and the knob shimmered with promise. Harry fought back the urge to rush through it, and looked back to Dum- to Death, expectant.
A matter of fact nod, and a grand staircase appeared, sweeping alarmingly high to one side of the web of strings above, “You can choose to return to your fight, to the moment of your death, with all as you left it. There is business left unfinished with those you left behind, but those you’ve lost will still be gone.”
Harry sighed, knowing which choice he would make as soon as they were both laid out. There was no part of him that could be at peace knowing he could have gone back to help his friends but chose not to. He opened his mouth to say as much, but was cut off by another staircase, rising up in a mirror of the first, stretching to nearly the other side of the web of magic.
“Or, you can choose the past, a path untraveled. As a reward for your heroism, I can grant you an opportunity to tug on the strings of time. Success could gain you an ally that could have been, and win your loved ones a newly woven fate.”
Something ominous but somehow hopeful buzzed in the air around the second staircase. It was the path most full of uncertainty, but also, of possibility. The thrilling curiosity for the unknown, and desperation for a leap of faith re-lit the flame of fight that Voldemort had snuffed out with his killing curse. Harry got the feeling that any other choice would leave him a cold and empty shell of himself.
As though something inside him was physically dragging him forward, Harry stumbled towards the bottom step of the newest staircase, and looked back at Death (ft. Dumbledore), long enough to see a knowing smile, and those twinkling eyes return.
Then he was on the staircase, and the step under his feet was propelling him upward at a dizzying pace. As the golden strings seemed to rush down to meet him, he heard Dumbledore’s voice call after him.
“The smallest action can make the biggest changes, use your second chance well for there is no returning here until your thread has reached its end. Go well, and trust in your guide.”
There was no time at all for questions before everything went blindingly white, and Harry was thrust once again into the unknown.
***
The first thing Harry became aware of was the sheer weight of existing in reality.
He felt heavy, like the gravity had been dialed up, and distantly wondered if this was how astronauts felt when they came back to earth.
His eyes, previously shut tight against the bright white, fluttered open slowly, and his surroundings came into focus.
The forest. He was lying on the forest floor, in precisely the spot where he’d faced Voldemort what felt like hours before. Now, however, he was alone. The wind rustled the trees around him, and the soft light of dusk filtered through the leaves. It would be dark soon.
Harry’s well-tuned survival instinct got him up off the ground and alert. He scooped up his invisibility cloak and Draco Malfoy’s hawthorne wand, and was reaching for his glasses before he realized that he…didn’t need them.
Blinking, he straightened up, leaving his glasses discarded in the detritus. Curiously, he held a hand up in front of his face. He could see the creases in his palm, and the gentle whirl on the pad of each finger. Then, on inspecting the back, he realized his skin was unblemished. There was no “I must not tell lies” etched there in his own spiky hand. His fingers strayed to his chest where the locket had left a little concave burn right over his sternum, but that was gone too.
Did that mean…? Trembling fingers touched his forehead and found only smooth skin where a lightning bolt scar once spidered from his hairline to his brow.
As he continued to take stock of himself, Harry realized that not only his old scars had vanished, but so had the fresh cuts of battle. The soreness of stress held in his shoulders had eased, and the burning ache of his thighs from sprinting up and down castle stairs had faded.
Aside from his mental exhaustion, Harry was as healthy and whole as he’d ever been.
Perhaps things really would be better here, whenever here was. He huffed a laugh at that thought before shaking his head and setting his shoulders, it was time to start figuring out what needed changing.
First he had to know what day it was, or what year, even, and the easiest solution seemed to be heading up to the castle to investigate.
Pulling his invisibility cloak carefully around himself, he made it about ten steps through the underbrush before the hem of the cloak caught on something, or…was caught by something he realized as he turned around.
There on the top of a moss covered stump, a tiny humanoid figure stood, glowing faintly orange, and clinging desperately to the still-invisible fabric. Tiny trails of smoke began to rise from where it grasped at Harry and he pulled the cloak from around his shoulders to tug it gently away from those dangerous little hands.
Looking down at the figure dubiously, Harry raised an eyebrow, “Erm, Hello?”
It didn’t answer, but sprouted wings seemingly made of flame, and flitted up to his eye level. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a genderless person, the size of a pixie, it’s translucent skin revealing swirling lava within, and coal black eyes staring at him imploringly.
A fire sprite.
He realized, seeing the picture from his Care of Magical Creatures book in his mind’s eye. He didn’t remember much about them, only that they were quite rare, and quite dangerous if provoked or threatened. There was something, though, when he wracked his brain…perhaps something that Hagrid had said about old wives tales of…elemental creatures crossing the veil?
“ Trust in your guide,” Death had said, and, well, weirder things had already happened today.
“Are you my guide?” He asked the creature plainly, not sure what to expect in reply.
Its fire seemed to glow brighter, whiter, and it flitted in a joyful circle around him. “I’ll take that as a yes. Guide away, then.”
The sprite shot off into the forest in the opposite direction from the castle, and Harry hurried after it, crossing his fingers that this wasn’t absolutely mad.
***
Harry couldn’t say how long he’d been chasing the darting ball of flame through the trees when it finally flickered out entirely, and left him standing breathless in the dark.
Night had fallen nearly without his notice, and the burn in his legs was back, a light sweat chilling the back of his neck in the cold evening air, and then the drizzle broke through the trees.
He groaned and cast impervius on his cloak, wrapping it back snugly around himself and tugging the hood over his face. Without his guide to follow, Harry could think of no better plan than to keep walking through the trees in the direction he’d been headed. He’d eventually reach the edge of the forest, probably. At the least he’d find somewhere to get out of the rain, and the chill that sliced through the thin fabric of his cloak despite the charm.
For once, his tendency to barrel towards the unknown paid off, and he broke through the last thicket of branches to find himself on the edge of Hogsmeade Village, somehow the edge furthest from the school, but he didn’t want to hurt himself by ruminating on the geography of the Forbidden Forest.
Rain sleuced down roofs and windows, collected in the deep grooves between the cobblestones, and muffled the sounds of Harry slinking from the trees onto the main street where he could scope out the foot traffic, (or lack thereof) through the village this early evening.
The streets were mostly empty, though candles still burned in the windows of shoppes, and the ever-present din of the Three Broomsticks could be heard, if faintly, from the other end of the street.
Everything was, within the circumstances of “weird Death spirit time travel,” seemingly normal.
Of course no sooner had that thought crossed his mind than a shifting in the shadows drew his attention across the road. Someone in a black cloak, hood pulled low over their face, was slinking down the alley between the Hog’s Head Inn and a solicitor’s office with cobwebs in the windows.
Harry watched them surreptitiously look over their shoulder and fought down the slight panic that he could be seen, the one that still hadn’t gone away, no matter how much he used his cloak. Even invisible, he kept a safe distance, slipping across the road and into the shadows and trailing the cloaked figure down the alley and to the back of the Hog’s Head.
A pale hand reached from within the cloak to pull open a rickety back door, stopping once to cast an unlocking charm, and again to silence creaking hinges until finally the door was open enough for a weak wedge of light to fall across the figure’s face. It took everything Harry had in him not to gasp aloud at the sight of Severus Snape.
In the time it took for Harry to truly comprehend what he’d just witnessed and compose himself, Snape had disappeared into the Hog’s Head, leaving Harry in the rain, staring at the closed wooden door. Absolutely certain that figuring out what Snape was up to was the opportunity he’d been given, Harry took a deep breath and followed behind him, doing his level best to mimic the impossibly smooth and silent movements that had gotten Snape in unnoticed, even without invisibility on his side.
Behind the door was, in fact, a storeroom of sorts, cases of liquor littered the floor, and a large basin against the wall was filled with dishes busily washing themselves. Snape was nowhere to be seen, surely having moved on to whatever dubious deeds called for sneaking into the back of an already rather shady inn after dusk.
Unlike the Three Broomsticks, the Hog’s Head was not bursting with patrons at this time of night (nor really ever, if Harry wasn’t mistaken), but a few wixen loitered at the bar with a pint, or a corner table with whatever dinner was being served up for the night. None of them, however, were Snape.
Harry began to cast his attention about the room again, lingering on each person in an attempt to discover any trace of glamours or other visual deceptions. Sometimes if he focused hard enough, he could make out the rippling edge of magic, but nothing was out of the ordinary in the bar. A loud thunk from above reminded him of the rooms upstairs, and he took a step towards the stairs, but that, it seemed, wouldn’t be necessary. Two figures came barreling down the stairs, Aberforth Dumbledore dragging Snape with a hand tight around his upper arm, like a child caught misbehaving.
That might actually be relatively close to the truth.
Snape scowled at Aberforth and jerked his arm away, snarling something quiet that Harry couldn’t hear before storming out of the bar and back into the drizzling rain.
Albus Dumbledore came down the stairs a moment later, quickly followed by a bemused looking Trelawney and it finally hit Harry like a bludger to the chest.
“A cold, wet night sixteen years ago, in a room above the bar at the Hog’s Head Inn.”
This was a story that Dumbledore had told Harry (would tell Harry?) in his office after the events in the Department of Mysteries.
Tonight was the night the prophecy was made.
Snape. He was supposed to stop Snape.
The thought was only half formed when Harry began to move, lunging across the room and whipping the door open without a care for how it would look to those who couldn’t see him.
Even in his rush, however, he’d lost precious time in those moments between Snape storming out and Dumbledore’s appearance, and there was no one to be seen on the street.
No one save for a tiny fire sprite flitting about frantically, spitting sparks and steaming from the rain.
Harry moved towards his guide, speeding up as it began to fly with purpose, as it had in the woods. He chased it down to the end of the street, where the train station stood empty, and just beyond it, the safe apparition point.
There wasn’t a trace of anyone, not even footprints in the dirt where the stone path ended and Harry let out a groan of frustration, whipping the hood of his cloak down with a little too much gusto, and tipping his face back to let the cold rain chill his skin.
It was the sound of sparks, louder than the rain, that pulled him out of his irritation and he gaped at what he saw.
The sprite was spinning in rapid circles, throwing off sparks, which rather than fizzling out, stayed in the air, and gathered into the shape of a figure, cloak flung out around them in the frozen image of a turn, like turning on one’s heel to aparate.
Harry stepped closer, and the sprite gestured for him to put out a hand. Somehow he knew just what to do, he stepped into the magical imprint of Snape’s apparition and held his hand out to the creature, who landed on his palm.
It burned like touching white hot iron, but Harry felt the familiar squeeze and pull of apparition from one place to another, and then twice more. When everything was still again, he pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes, then blinked a few times, trying to regain his equilibrium after three quick jumps in succession.
The sprite was nowhere to be seen and his hand, though he could still feel the ghost of heat, was unburnt.
He was standing in a blissfully dry but still chilly car park, with a quaint little pub and a few shops nearby.
It was very clearly a muggle town, and Harry was careful to duck behind a car before pulling off his cloak and tucking it away, along with the wand he’d had drawn since he first noticed Snape skulking around in Hogsmeade.
Snape must be around here somewhere. Or, Harry’s goal was something else…or the sprite was just a sprite and not a guide at all…or this was all some post-horcrux coma dream…or he really was dead, and running around after also-dead death eaters was his true personal hell.
A car backfired nearby and Harry jumped, quickly shaking off the spiral of thoughts that had threatened to pull him in. Stopping to think too hard about this absolutely fucking mad scenario was the worst possible thing he could do to sabotage himself.
“This is real. I have a mission here. It’s gonna be fine.” He reassured himself quietly, and strode off towards the door of the bar. Thankfully, Hermione had insisted that all of their clothes had wixen and muggle money already stuffed in the pockets, so if nothing else, he’d gone to his death prepared to buy a drink.
The little pub had a healthy clientele, a few tables of cheerfully chattering diners, a table of rowdy teens off in a corner, and a few patrons seated at the long bar.
Harry sighed in relief upon noticing that one said patron was a young Severus Snape. He couldn’t be older than twenty, which would be about right, if tonight was the night Harry thought it was, late winter, 1980, a few months before he was born.
Unsure of what else to do, Harry sidled up to the bar, choosing an empty stool one seat away from Snape. He ordered a pint which, thankfully, the barman poured him without asking for ID.
Harry took a moment to covertly study Snape’s profile. There was the distinct aquiline nose, high cheekbones, and sharp jaw, smooth and free of stubble, unlike the Snape that Harry knew. His dark eyes were set deep in his face, and the skin beneath was bruised with purple that spoke of restless nights. Even so, there was something about him that was….lighter. Less burdened, maybe than the man twice his age that had lived through wars and regret and betrayal and loss.
Sitting there in the bar, clad in dark blue jeans and a black long-sleeved henley, he could have been a tired Uni student coming off a study binge rather than the most perplexing wizard Harry thought he’d ever known. There was something lovely about it. Something Harry wanted to reach out and touch.
This man was somehow so much closer to Lily Evans’s best friend than to Harry Potter’s bitter potions master.
“Can I help you?” drawled an almost familiar voice, higher in pitch, but only just, than what Harry expected. It took him an extra beat to even realize that he’d been caught staring and Harry met Snape’s gaze, smiling guiltily.
“Eh, sorry, I was just…uh. Can I buy you a drink?” Harry stuttered, having found himself entirely unprepared to actually speak to Snape, especially after the flutter in his stomach in response to the meeting of their eyes. Something undefinable flashed in Snape’s eyes as they rested on Harry’s rich green, but it was gone as soon as it had come.
To Harry’s surprise, Snape eyed him appraisingly, studying his face, then his body, sending a flush up the back of Harry’s neck. He wasn’t sure how being checked out by his professor was supposed to feel, but temptingly pleasant certainly wasn’t it.
“Very well.” Snape conceded, and waved down the bartender to refill the glass of deep amber liquid in front of him, which Harry quickly pulled out the coins to pay for.
This was as good an opening as any, and Harry slid over a seat, onto the stool just beside him. “I’m Harry,” he offered, turning partway to face Snape, who followed suit, though his face was unreadable.
“Hello Harry, I’m Stephen,” he lied silkily, and Harry, having known that Snape was a spy but never been knowingly subject to his manipulations, was surprised at how truthful it sounded, how easily it rolled from Snape’s tongue.
Of course, the flip of his stomach at his own name in that tone was something else entirely and Harry tried to push it away, but he was feeling quite warm under the studious gaze of nearly-black eyes.
“Nice to meet you, Stephen.” he managed, taking a healthy gulp of the cold beer in front of him and finding himself unable to keep his eyes away from Snape for too long. He studied the jut of his clavicle, where the cut of his shirt revealed just enough milky skin. “What brings you ‘round here?” He asked, trying to stay on track. Not that he really knew what track that was, but he knew that Snape ultimately relayed part of the prophecy to Voldemort, and maybe if he kept him talking, kept him distracted…Harry could come up with a way to prevent that from happening.
Snape nursed his glass of liquor, and flickered his gaze about the room before returning to look at Harry, “Just killing a little time before I’m called back to work.” It was very believable, and perhaps because it was actually essentially true. Snape was probably in this bar waiting to be called by Voldemort to dutifully relay his news, the bombshell that would explode Harry’s life.
“At this hour?” Harry scoffed, as convincingly as he could, despite not actually knowing how late it was.
Snape hummed thoughtfully, and gave a little shrug, “I go when I’m needed, but…” he tossed back the rest of his drink and leaned closer, setting a hand on Harry’s thigh, just above his knee, “that won’t be for a while yet.” It was a quiet purr that went directly to Harry’s groin, making it a little difficult to think clearly.
What the fuck is happening? He asked himself, looking up at Snape with wide eyes. Snape just jerked his head in an invitation to follow and slid off the stool, striding away towards the back of the pub.
Harry was absolutely not staring at Severus Snape’s ass as he walked away. He also absolutely didn’t just get propositioned by his teacher. And he certainly was only following because of the mission.
Snape moved into a hallway, and past the doors to the toilets, then through a door that was already cracked open to the cool night, leading to the vacant space behind the pub, shadowed and private, away from onlooking eyes.
Trailing after him, Harry gripped his wand inside his pocket, not sure exactly what he was walking into. Not sure what he wanted to be walking into.
He was only a step out the door before he was pulled by the arm, then pinned against the cold brick wall, the distant click of the door shutting registering just before Snape was against him, a thigh pressed between his own, and a wand pressed sharply into his neck. Harry flushed in an uncomfortable combination of want and embarrassment, though it didn’t escape his notice that Snape wasn’t entirely soft against his thigh.
“Who sent you?” Snape snarled, suspicion predominant in his gaze as he looked over Harry’s face.
Harry let out a pained laugh, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he answered truthfully, but Snape didn't like that answer, pushing his wand harder against Harry’s jugular.
“Dumbledore or The Dark Lord?” he spit out, as though he was sure those were the only two options.
“Neither!” Harry huffed out, head resting back against the brick. He slid his hands slowly from his pockets, leaving his wand behind. He held his arms up in surrender, and rested his weight against the wall, not pushing back against Snape’s firm grasp on him.
The hold didn’t loosen, but Snape shifted his thigh back, drawing the faintest of whimpers from Harry, who was really missing being actually dead right about now, because that was certainly much less mortifying than this. “Explain. Truthfully,” Snape demanded, and his tone said Harry would regret anything else.
“I meant it, you wouldn’t believe me,” he started, wincing slightly as Snape’s wand hand twitched, “not unless you look for yourself.”
This at least gave Snape enough pause to look at him questioningly, and Harry nodded the best he could, gesturing vaguely towards his head, “Go on, look. I know you can, Severus.” The name felt foreign on his tongue but it seemed to be enough to prompt Snape forward.
“ Legilimens ,” came his whispered spell, and Harry did his best to keep his mind entirely open, hiding nothing. As terrifying as that was, he wasn’t a Gryffindor for nothing.
He expected the sharp pain that he’d become familiar with in the times he been subject to Snape searching his brain, but this was different. He could feel another consciousness pushing into his mindspace, but the magic was careful, shifting through his memories, starting with Harry’s earliest, the flash of green light and the scream of Lily Potter dying to save her son.
Then it was the Dursley’s, when he was shut in the cupboard for the first time at five years old. Hagrid telling him who he was, the boy who lived , then the boat ride across the Black Lake, his first potions class, a mean and bitter thirty-something Severus berating him. The memories started flipping by faster, the Basilisk, Tom Riddle’s diary, Dementors on the train, learning to conjure Prongs to save Sirius, The Tournament, Voldemort’s return, Grimmauld Place and of course, Occlumency lessons with Snape himself. Ironic, that.
Harry’s life continued to flash inside his mind, and he focussed instead on the feeling of Snape’s magic brushing against his, sharp but pleasant, like Fizz Wiz in his brain. Horcruxes, the cave with the locket, the Astronomy Tower, Snape’s killing curse, Dumbledore’s crumpled body. He felt a stutter in Snape’s concentration, and emotions began to trickle in, horror, fear, regret. They weren’t Harry’s.
Loved ones fleeing Bill and Fleur’s wedding. Infiltrating the Ministry. The Forest of Dean. Malfoy Manor. Dobby in the sand. McGonagall throwing curses at Snape. Fiendfyre. Nagini in the Shrieking Shack. Snape’s last moments.
Distantly there was a gasp of pain, terror, a small sob. Harry didn’t know which one of them it came from.
Harry burrowed into Snape’s magic inside his head, latching onto it to keep him from withdrawing, and offered up the rest.
Snape’s memories. The resurrection stone. Lily, James, Remus, Sirius.
Voldemort.
Death.
A Choice.
Harry felt empty when he let go and Snape’s magic faded from his consciousness. He ached, and somehow…he missed it.
He was sitting on cold concrete, his back against the brick wall, with Snape kneeling in front of him looking beautiful and devastated. They both had faces streaked with tears, and Snape gasped in a desperate breath.
“Lily,” he whispered mournfully.
Harry nodded, feeling as though the remnants of Snape’s emotions were still within him, like a ghost, because the word pulsed in him with the deepest regret. “My mum.”
Snape’s eyes snapped up to meet his, “Your eyes…”
A wet laugh jumped from his chest, “I have my mother’s eyes.”
A long moment of silence stretched between them, before Snape looked down, “What am I supposed to do?” he asked desperately, sounding as young and unsure as Harry had ever seen him, or probably ever would.
“You can’t give him the prophecy.” Harry said firmly, grasping tightly to Snape’s forearm. Snape flinched, and looked as though he’d be ill.
“It could be…It could be the Longbottoms, Frank and Alice, they’re having a son-”
“The day after me.” Harry confirmed warily.
“I could tell him it’s them. Save Lily, save…you.”
Harry’s heart fluttered, but he shook his head. “How is that any better?” He demanded, eyes burning up at Snape. I want Lily to live but the Longbottoms don’t deserve that. Neville doesn't deserve the life I had.
Snape groaned, rubbing his hands over his eyes and pushing dark strands of hair from his face. “I have to give him something…I can’t go back empty handed.” He tugged at his hair in frustration and Harry reached up without a thought and grabbed his hands, pulling them away and holding them between his own, rubbing gently to warm cold fingers, and noting the way that Severus shivered at the touch.
After a moment of hesitation, Harry asked the question that had been on his mind longer than he could remember.
“Why go back at all?”
This seemed to touch a nerve in Severus and he jerked his hands away, pushing up off the ground and making to walk away.
“Severus!” Harry called, not sure when the person in front of him became Severus, though it was probably around about the time that Harry invited him to peruse the library of his memories unhindered. “Severus, please,” he begged, gasping back a quiet sob as the man turned back around to look at him. “Don’t go.”
“I have to!” Severus bit back harshly. “I have to go back to him, I have to!” His voice rose with every word, even as he drew back closer to Harry, pressing him against the brick again, a hand on each of Harry’s biceps. .
“Please,” Harry whispered plaintively, distantly noticing the streaks of warm gray in Severus’s black eyes, like lightning in a storm. “Just tell me why.”
“Because it’s all I have!” he snarled, glaring defensively back at Harry.
Harry’s eyes softened, and his heart tore a little as he recognized this feeling, this desperation. Finding one thing that is good, or good enough, one person that needs you, or wants you, and clinging to it with everything that you have because you just can’t bear to be alone anymore.
Gryffindor. Sirius. Dumbledore. Ginny. He’d clung to things too because they felt like all that he had, as an identity, or a parent, or…to love him.
“It doesn’t have to be.” The words came out in a whisper, almost silent, and Harry wasn’t even sure he’d spoken them aloud until he watched a new kind of anxiety and panic unfurl on Severus’s face.
A soft exhale of breath warmed Harry’s face, the faint smell of whiskey lingering in the space between them, and Severus’s grip on his arms loosened, just touching him rather than holding him in place.
It could have been those “strings of fate” he’d heard so much about, or maybe it was all Harry, but his hand was curling around the back of Severus’s neck before he knew what he was doing. He raised up on his toes to reach and found Severus pliant, meeting him halfway.
Their lips met in a soft brush, a spark of magic passing between them like static electricity, eliciting a gasp from Severus. Harry took advantage of the opportunity to slide his tongue over one chapped lip and then into Severus’s mouth.
One of them groaned and Harry was pressed to the wall again, a tall, lean body up against him and a hand on the back of his head, tugging gently on his hair.
Harry pulled him even closer, fingers curling into the soft fabric of his shirt, feeling the warmth radiating beneath and sighing contentedly into the kiss.
After a moment, they parted, but Severus didn’t step away, instead resting his forehead on Harry’s and looking at him beseechingly. “I still don’t know what to do,” he whispered, though much of the anxiety in his face was gone.
Harry smiled up at him softly, “I don’t either, but I’ll help you figure it out.”
Severus studied his face for a long moment, long enough that Harry thought he might still pull away, but then he sighed, carding his fingers through Harry’s hair again.
“Okay.”