Low Man Is Due

Hmm, and we reach the end of part two. I can\'t believe how quickly this section of the story has been finished.



This is specially dedicated to Jilliane for her humungous review, and in response to your questions - my stories may contain misdirection, my warnings NEVER do; and to your other questions: Not saying!



Reviews large or small are always appreciated. SP



Chapter Nine: And I can’t bear to see what I’ve let me be: so wicked and worn.



Early morning. Pale spring light came filtering weakly through the grimly windows.



A knock at the door. Silence in the house apart from the shuffling of a young man, still licking blood from one arm.



Having only just woken up, and recently climaxed, Harry was less than fully awake. He opened the door without stopping first to check who it was.



It was Snape.



“No! No! Nononononononononononononononono!” his voice started softly, but rose to a scream. “NO!” Harry backed away, terrified, stumbling to the floor and trembling all over.



His visitor stared at him, unspeaking, unmoving.



“Go away!” Harry sobbed, tears finally, for the first time since he had come home, starting to fall, “Oh, go away!”



He shook helplessly, hands clenching pointlessly into fists, making the scar along his left hand stand out, a silver line of hurt to match his slashed heart and soul. The wound on his arm began to spill red fluid but he ignored it all. “Go away!” he croaked, and dropped his forehead to the floor, screwing his eyes shut tight. He was silently thinking that maybe if he just wished hard enough, Snape would just vanish.



Of course he didn’t. He just stood on the threshold and waited. A silent figure all in black as usual. No concession made to the warm spring weather. No sound came from the older man, not even as he watched Harry slowly disintegrate before his eyes.



At last even Harry had to pull himself together. He swiped an arm across his nose, leaving a glistening trail of snot on one limb. He stayed on the floor, not trusting his legs to support him, and looked up, eyelashes clumped together with tears. “What do you want?” he mouthed, utterly unable to speak; his throat had closed over with terror.



Finally, after eons had passed, Severus spoke. “To explain.”



“Explain?” Harry’s voice rose hysterically, his throat clearing, “Explain?! Explain what? Your obsession? Your torment of me? Your lies? Your freedom now?” He gulped, bottom lip trembling with frantic emotion.



“All of that. If you’ll let me.”



“Let you? When did you offer me a choice – a real choice when I was captured?” Harry felt suddenly so tired, so very tired. His anger just drained away as he loked at the slender figure haloed by the early morning sunlight. “Just … go away. Go away.”



“Just listen, that’s all I ask. You don’t even need to look at me. I can’t enter without your consent. If I do I risk Azkaban. You can go into the living room and not even look at me. But I want to make it clear to you, Harry, make everything clear to you.”



Harry clenched his jaw. “No,” he said at long last, “Come in. I’m not defenceless this time.”



Snape took a step forward. Harry suddenly seemed to realise what he had said; his eyes widened and he scrambled onto shaky legs and backed away, keeping the same distance from his former teacher.



Harry backed onto the stairs. “Stay there,” he said, holding out one hand as if to ward off the other, although Severus had stopped at once, “that’s close enough.”



He settled onto a step and stared determinedly at the older man’s feet. He wanted to glance up, to meet those onyx eyes, but couldn’t.



It took Severus a few seconds before he could begin speaking. “I assume, from what you said, that you heard what I said at my trial. I won’t bore you by repeating it. Suffice to say I have spent much of this academic year wanting very much to be with you in a physical way.” Snape stared intently at Harry, who made the error of looking up and seeing the passion still blazing in those dark eyes.



“No!” Harry broke in, standing suddenly, “This – This was a mistake. I – I can’t. I can’t.”



He turned and ran, fleeing to safety. Fleeing away from Snape. Fleeing away from his own chaotic thoughts.



They followed him.



All the way up the stairs, chasing after him relentlessly, without pause, his demons followed; hurtling along in his wake until he slammed open the bathroom door and bent over the sink, dry heaving.



He looked up into the mirror and gave a strangled sob. He saw Snape’s reflection over his shoulder. A forbidding figure in black. Harry yelled, something incoherent and animalistic and smashed one fist into the glass. It shattered, great shards of it embedded in his skin, blood flowing from the ripped flaps. It streamed down into the sink, shattered pieces of glass tinkling there too.



And still he saw Snape behind him. The figure was distorted and deformed, much like Harry’s own face, and his own soul, but Snape was still there. The personification of all his demons, just standing there staring at him with … pity? love? hope? on his face. Harry didn’t know.



Harry had to escape. Had to. He picked up a long, wickedly sharp shard of glass and let the razor-like edge slice neatly along the blue veins in his wrists. The familiar feeling of blankness swept over him. Erection tenting his trousers, he dropped to the cold tiled floor, life blood flowing away.



The pool of red showed starkly against the sterile white tiles.



Harry slumped forward, eyes rolling backwards.



END OF PART TWO