Jigsaw

A/N *looks around sheepishly for anyone actually still reading this fic, before wailing in misery.* Is it just me or has the traffic to the old Snape/Harry slash fiction slowed off. I blame JKRowling for this lack of enthusiasm in this slash section, if only she hadn\'t made Snape the bastard....*Wails in distress* Please, I know it\'s been a while since I updated this story but I promise it get\'s really, really good and I would really, like to get a bit of feedback on it, even if it is to completely bag out my rotten spelling mistakes and bad grammar. Anyway I hope you like this juicy little update, this is really my favourite story I\'ve written yet and I hope you\'re enjoying it too. Please read and review, my muse is bruised from people turning thier back on Snape, and I need something to perk it back up again.

Cheers RiffRaff


CHAPTER 21

“I thought you said you’d sleep through the worst.” Harry muttered quietly as he held back Snape’s hair as the elder wizard retched again into the toilet bowl. It had taken precisely four hours for the side affects Snape had mentioned to kick in. Harry had been awoken by someone stumbling around him in the darkness of the living room. The sight that had greeted Harry when he’d sat up and flick his wand at the candles was of Snape slumped against the wall, looking pale, sweaty and basically unwell. Harry was worried but didn’t let on as he helped the man into the bathroom.

Snape didn’t answer Harry’s comment and instead the wizard slumped gratefully back against Harry who was kneeling on the floor beside him. Gently Harry reached for the wet cloth in the sink above him and softly wiped the man’s mouth and forehead where beads of sweat had again begun to form. Snape looked exhausted his eye lids half closed in fatigue and his breathing laboured. Harry rested himself back against the tiled wall of the bathroom as Snape settled in between his legs, the man’s head resting limply against the younger man’s chest.

“I told you it’d make you sick didn’t I but you being you just went ahead and tried it anyway.” Harry whispered with far less conviction than he would have probably liked. He wanted to tell the man he ‘told him so’ but it wasn’t appropriate when Snape was in no condition to defend himself as he usually would. Snape mumbled something against Harry’s chest but the younger wizard ignored it, instead gently soothing his hand through the tousled length of black hair spread out and over Snape’s exposed shoulders. If the situation hadn’t been so serious Harry might have giggled at Snape’s attire. The wizard it seemed wore a daggy old grey nightshirt to bed, but it was too big and slid off the man’s shoulders slightly. Considering the wizards usually immaculate day attire it was strange seeing something less than perfect on the man. Harry stopped himself physically from reaching out to touch the soft milky skin of the man’s neck and instead brought his fingers back to stroking them through the man’s hair. It was surprising really. All the years Harry had made fun of Snape’s greasy looking hair, yet all the time it was just damp from the condensation in the air of the potions classroom. In fact the hair was clean, silky and soft to the touch and felt like a cascade of black water through Harry’s fingers.

Snape didn’t seem to be protesting the soothing motion and so Harry continued. It was a well-known fact Snape didn’t like to be touched. Lupin had found that out the hard way during training in those first few months of the real campaign against Voldemort. The werewolf had mistakenly gone to grab Snape around the waist during a manoeuvre and had ended up with two broken hands and a fractured cheekbone, when Snape had freaked out at the touch. It stood to reason though, at least in Harry’s mind. After suffering abuse at the hands of so many while being a death eater, Snape would naturally fear or shy away from everyone’s touch no matter what their intentions. Now though the soothing motion seemed to have a calming affect on the wizard who had settled now completely against Harry, his breathing evening out and his shakes lessoning.

“It was probably my spunk that made you sick.” Harry whispered gently not really knowing if Snape was listening or if he was just talking to himself in order to keep awake. “They say it’s an acquired taste. Hermione refuses to suck Ron because of it. She reckons it tastes of rancid salty bacon, but I suppose you don’t want to hear about that.” Harry smiled as he thought about his friends, or rather his friend and one ex best friend. If they could see him now, cradling Snape like a sick child and talking absolute nonsense then perhaps they’d change their mind about the wizard he was helping. “Personally I don’t really know what it tastes like, never been game to try it or had the opportunity to either.” Harry trailed off watching as the wizard’s eyelids fluttered closed entirely his lips falling slightly open in sleep. Harry smiled at the wizard in his lap. “I suppose now you’re asleep I can ask you all those questions you’d have a go at me for if I ever asked you while you were awake. ‘Mind your own business Mr Potter’.” Harry did his best impression of Snape he could muster smiling to himself at how well he could imitate the man’s voice after years of being chastised by it. “Like did you ever have a girlfriend?” Harry waited for a reply he knew he wasn’t going to get.

“No you’re too arrogant for relationships. I bet you were like Malfoy shag em’ and dump em’.” Harry chuckled as he tried to picture Snape as a blonde.

“Or did you ever fantasise about any of your students?” Harry smiled cheekily down at Snape’s quiet form in his lap.

“Nah, that would go against your ‘morals’ wouldn’t it, you self righteous sod. Never one to break the rules were you? Sirius always said you were a goodie two shoes at school, all high grades, studying and arse kissing teachers. It’s hard to imagine why you got the dark mark in the first place, a little rebellion perhaps or maybe your family was as shit as mine was and forced you into it.” Harry yawned quietly and rested his head back against the wall wincing a little as Snape unconsciously shifted closer to him so that the man’s head was now just resting under Harry’s chin. “Really I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know what you like, what you enjoy, who your family is, what subjects you took at school, why you like potions….” Harry trailed off now fighting sleep himself. “…but you’re never likely to tell me are you. You’re so secretive, so unfeeling, and so untrusting. You didn’t even tell me what or how you came by this bloody potion. If you just made an effort I could……” Harry trailed off as finally he couldn’t fight the sleep any more and with his head falling softly onto the top of Snape’s he fell quietly into slumber, the comfortable weight of his potions professor keeping him warm in the chill of the bathroom.

**********************************************

Harry stretched languidly and yawned having had the most restful nights sleep he’d had in years. The warm, soft sheets spread deliciously over his body shielding him from the sharp cold air of the room. Rolling over Harry expected to meet the edge of his cot beside the fire but instead his hands met more expanse of warm sheets and bed. It took a moment for this to register in Harry’s sleep addled brain but the instant it did Harry was sitting up and staring around in shock. Harry was lying in Snape’s bed, the drapes of the four poster partially closed. The bed was soft, as was the blankets and sheets, and the pillow had been like a fluffy cloud beneath his head. It took a little more time for Harry to remember what had happened last night, and then it occurred to him rapidly that he couldn’t hear any signs of Snape. Like lightening Harry shot out of the bed, scrambling over to the closed bedroom door and yanking it open with force. The sight stunned Harry, the lounge room was in complete chaos, furniture scattered everywhere, books on the floor, and the coffee table on its end, the entire place had been rearranged. Amongst it all though stood Snape the man barely dressed in his nightshirt and laughing. Harry couldn’t move as he watched tears of laughter stream down the man’s face his rich velvety laugh resonating around the room. Harry couldn’t help himself but get caught up in the man’s genuine show of happiness and began laughing himself.

“Harry! I can see! I can see!” Snape had obviously heard Harry’s accompanying laughter and the younger wizard watched as Snape spun around happily waving his wand about him, causing little coloured sparks to fly from the end of it like fireworks. It was then that Snape went to take a step towards Harry but missed the coffee table and fell helplessly forward with a thud onto the armchair. Harry stopped laughing immediately and ran over to Snape who was now lying flat across the armchair. Harry expected that the man had hurt himself but watched as Snape rolled over still laughing. “I didn’t see that.” Snape whispered between his breathless giggles. Harry frowned and shook his head in complete loss for words. Not five minutes before Snape had declared he could see, but had then contradicted himself by falling over the coffee table he hadn’t seen.

“You can’t see very well if you didn’t see that.” Harry muttered as Snape sat up in his chair and Harry perched himself on the edge of the upended coffee table.

“No not well, but it’s coming back. Shapes, movement, a little colour. Not precise but there all the same.” Snape smiled widely at Harry who had cautiously taken the man’s wand off him so that he couldn’t do any more damage to the room.

“So the potion works!” Harry whispered stunned that only after four weeks they’d found the cure.

“Of course it does, 20 years of my life has gone into that potion Potter I’d be disappointed if it didn’t at least have some affect.” Harry was clearly shocked by Snape’s enthusiastic declaration, he himself now having to smile as Snape’s infections grin caught on.

“20 years? I thought you said it’d only been eight since I cursed you?” Harry inquired taking the opportunity while Snape seemed to be in a good mood to press for further information about the potion.

“Yes it has but this potion wasn’t designed for this curse it was designed for another blood curse, one that eventually took both my father, my mother and my sister from me.” Harry again was shocked by the revelation that a blood curse had been the cause of Snape’s entire family death.

“What curse?” Harry whispered wondering if Snape too was suffering from another family curse he didn’t know about.

“The dark mark Potter, the mark of Tom Riddle!” Snape said enthusiastically obviously himself hardly believing the potion had actually worked.

“The dark mark was a blood curse?” Harry watched as Snape nodded his grin still firmly in place. Harry noted as he stared in Snape’s eyes that a little of the cloud had cleared leaving just the hint of the chocolate brown irises that Harry remembered.

“Indeed designed by Salazar Slytherin himself to unite his house and students through a mental bond, but exploited by Tom Riddle to wield power and control others.” Snape laughed out loud again as he relaxed into his chair the smile on his face so surreal Harry had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t still dreaming.

“Why isn’t it this sort of history that professor Binns teaches in his classroom?” Harry asked incredulously wondering why he’d never been told what exactly the dark mark was or where it had come from originally.

“Because no one knows Potter, it’s a part of history the ministry don’t want to know about. It represents the underworld, the dirty little secrets of the wizarding world.” Snape sneered at the mention of the ministry, and Harry had to agree, the ministry were a pack of lunatics who when trouble arose, stuck their heads up their arses and hummed a pretty tune till they thought the problem had gone away.

“So how come you were making the potion for that long?” Harry spoke calmly, blown away now by how complex this all seemed to be getting.

“My father began the research first. He was sick and tired of living in fear that Voldemort should return and ruin his life. The Snape’s have been entwined with Voldemort since his creation, and it has ultimately led to nothing but death and tragedy for us. My father, was an alchemist and was attempting to find a cure for the accursed mark on his arm before Voldemort returned and began recalling his followers. He died before he managed it but I inherited all his research. As a child I never saw why he was fighting the mark on his arm, I saw it as something to be proud of. It was only when I joined the ranks of the death eaters that I realised why he was trying to find the cure. I was foolishly naive and thought power was the answer to everything. I should have listened to my old man’s ramblings but like most teenagers I didn’t and I have been paying for the price of my decisions ever since. After Albus saved me, I took up my fathers research again and have been quietly working with the potion ever since.” Harry smiled as he watched Snape sigh quietly to himself content in the knowledge he’d done something his father might have been proud of.

“How did you know it would work on this cure?” Harry whispered wondering quietly how Snape had come by the decision to try this potion.

“I didn’t, it was just a hunch. The potion was created to counteract Voldemort, so I figured with the curse having gone through him to get to me, with a little added bit of you it might just balance itself out and work. Trial and error Potter.” Harry couldn’t believe what he was hearing and sat in stunned silence staring at Snape, grinning like an idiot. It occurred to Harry that he’d never seen the potion master expresses genuine happiness before until now, and it had a strange effect on Harry’s stomach. Snape had always been unique in his appearance, dark and brooding. He wasn’t especially attractive not in the common way, but the potions master had his own unique handsomeness that Harry had fallen completely in love with during his days at school. Just staring at the man now, a rarely bestowed smile on his face seemed to reignite the flame Harry had shut out when the war had ended.

“You’re beautiful.” Harry whispered so lost in his gaze that he didn’t realise what he’d just said out aloud.

“I beg your pardon Potter?” Almost instantly Harry snapped out of his daydream and watched horrified as Snape’s smile faded and the man’s brow furrowed in the more familiar scowl.

“What?” Harry played innocent somewhat glad, that Snape was still blind and not unable to see his guilty facial expression. Snape stared at Harry with his cloudy eyes for a long moment before shaking his head.

“Nothing.” Snape muttered as he stood up from the chair still shaking his head. Harry bit his lip, repressing the sigh of relief that threatened to issue from his lips, having adverted certain disaster. “My wand please Potter, I wish to shower and change.” Snape held out his hand, and Harry quickly laid the elders new wand in his palm, watching as Snape turned and disappeared into his bedroom. Harry relaxed into the couch, feeling pleased with himself that Snape had found a cure for his curse but before he could settle the fireplace roared into life, the tell tale green flame lighting the room up. With a practised ease Harry flung himself over the back of the couch, aware that it might be some unwanted attention. Harry held his breath, praying Snape didn’t come out of his bedroom as he listened to the whisper of the magical fire.

“Mr Potter? Professor Snape? Is anyone there?” McGonagall’s voice was like a wave of relief washing over him and Harry sighed as he popped his head up from behind the couch to smile at the headmistress’ face in the fire.

“Headmistress….” Harry was about to remark on what her unexpected arrival had done to him, but he was cut off as she turned her stern and serious expression on him.

“Harry, thank goodness you’re there. You and Severus must leave at once. I have ministry officials, auror’s and Draco Malfoy at this very moment heading towards my office and there is little doubting what they have come about. I will stall them as long as I possibly can but you must leave immediately if you are to escape undetected. The auror’s are surrounding all entrances, I suggest you leave through one of the secret passages on the fifth floor.” Harry nodded already flicking his wand around the room returning it to its state before he and Severus arrived four weeks prior. McGonagall looked sideways from the fire before hastily looking back. “They’re here, go and good luck Harry Potter.” With a comforting smile she was gone. As soon as the fire had died, Severus appeared out of the bedroom door looking concerned, no doubt having felt the ward’s shift with the floo network having been connected.

“Potter, what’s going on?” Snape sounded mildly concerned his wand held out in front of him in fear that his chambers had been breached.

“We’ve got to go, Draco’s arrived.” Harry hastily pushed past Snape already shrinking their things back into their trunks, and stowing them safely in the pocket of his cloak, that he’d quickly pulled on after charming his clothes onto himself.

“Damn, I thought we had been doing well.” Severus muttered as he stood against the wall, knowing almost instinctively that attempting to help Harry arrange their departure would do more harm than good. Harry continued to run around Snape, fixing things up and disguising others, so as not to give away that they’d ever been in the chambers. “Harry the potion. Draco mustn’t get his hands on it.”

“What about you, you need it!” Harry hesitated in the doorway to the lab the last room in the chambers to be rectified. Harry had forgotten all about the potion, and cursed silently as he glanced into the lab to look at the cauldron full of potion.

“Bottle seven of the bigger vials and discard the rest it should be enough. I’ll grab my research just in case.” Severus was already moving cautiously over to his bookcase, and the locked cabinet beneath it. Harry nodded and quickly bottled the crimson red liquid into six of the clean vials before carefully wrapping them in some rags and putting them inside an old wooden tea chest he’d spotted on the side. Once the tea chest was securely shrunk and in his pocket Harry flicked his wand at the cauldron and watched with relief as the liquid and the cauldron disappeared with a hiss and a pop. Harry didn’t spare a moment to admire his handiwork before he was running from the lab, grabbing his invisibility cloak from the hook beside the door, along with the dusty old broom Sirius had given him yesterday.

“Come on let’s go.” Grabbing Severus’ elbow Harry pulled the man against him before draping the invisibility cloak over them. With a flick of his wand Severus had opened the door and the two of them began their escape through the corridors. In silence the two of them crept, narrowly avoiding a group of Slytherin’s who were coming out of their common room. Snape was pressed up against Harry’s back, completely dependent on the younger man leading him. Harry knew he had to be careful, every obstacle that they came too Harry had to warn Snape and it wouldn’t do for someone to hear him whispering. Thank-fully though most of the students were in morning classes and they’d only met a few strays by the time the pair of them had made it to the grand staircase. “Stairs.” Harry whispered as he slowly began up the stairs, closely sticking to the wall knowing most students hugged the banister on the unpredictable staircases. They were both doing well but halfway up the second staircase Harry heard a very familiar voice.

“I can assure you Mr Malfoy Hogwart’s is not harbouring Severus Snape.” On the staircase above them, heading their way was Malfoy, McGonagall and a team of Auror’s and ministry officials.

“You may not believe that Professor McGonagall but I assure you I have it on good authority that he is here, and I am merely performing my civic duty by assisting the ministry capture a wanted wizard.” Harry sneered at the authoritative tone Draco used, having heard a similar tone used constantly by Draco’s father.

“Shit.” Harry muttered as he glanced about the staircase frantic to find a place to hide out of the way. With the amount of people coming down the stairs there was no way someone wouldn’t bump into them.

“What.” Snape whispered his breath ghosting across Harry’s neck making the boy involuntarily shiver.

“Trouble.” Harry whispered back as he spotted a statue at the top of the staircase. If they could just get to there and hide beside it, they would be out of the way of the main flow of people. “Quick up the stairs.” Snape struggled on the stairs tripping twice as Harry practically dragged him up the staircase, all the while the group of wizards and witches heading towards them. McGonagall and Draco hit the top of the staircase as the same time as Snape and Harry. Like lightening Harry pulled Snape against his chest, as he backed them both into the corner of the statue between the wall and the stone figure. Harry held his breath as he stared into Snape’s face inches from his own. Draco stopped having felt the movement of air as Harry and Snape had run in front of him into the statue.

“Did you feel that?” Drawing his gaze reluctantly away from Snape, who was none the wiser to how close the two of them were, Harry glanced sideways at the group who were now all standing on the landing. Draco frowned across at McGonagall who glanced questioningly across at the blonde.

“Feel what?” The headmistress inquired as Draco began waving his hand about in front of him.

“That movement of cold air that came past just a second ago.” Draco was still waving his hand about and Harry feared the boy would touch them.

“Mr Malfoy, Hogwart’s is a very old castle and you know yourself we have many drafts. It was probably just the movement of the staircases below us.” Harry watched as McGonagall smiled the twinkle in her eyes a dead give away that she too had felt the movement but had concealed the information. Thank-fully Draco dropped his hands and nodded in agreement. “Shall we move on to the dungeons so you may satisfy yourself that Severus Snape is not here?” McGonagall gestured for the group to continue, and with an undignified snort, Draco led the group on down the staircases. Harry didn’t miss the knowing glance that the headmistress threw in his direction before she continued on with the group as well. Harry let out a heavy sigh of relief when the voices of the group disappeared. Snape was still stiffly pressed against Harry’s chest, remaining silent even though his cloudy eyes flicked around in concern.

“They’re gone.” Harry whispered as he pushed Snape back from him a little. “Come on that was too close.” Allowing Snape to take his elbow again the pair of them continued up the staircases and down into the secret passage that led from the fifth floor prefect boy’s bathroom.

TBC>>>>>>>>>>>>>>