A Man Cannot Control His Dreams

Though it has been more than a year since last updated, I have not forgotten!!
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29
Tried, Tested, and True
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Within nanoseconds of Severus appearing in the doorway, he was assaulted with a blur of apologies. Potter had been waiting for him. Should have seen it coming.

“I’msorryshejustsnuckuponmeIdidn’tmeantoit’snotlikeIwouldever-“ Severus held up a hand, stemming the word-vomit.

“For the love of Merlin, Potter, take a breath.” As if he needed anything less than this at the moment. Damn teenagers. Damn them all to hell.

****

“…Sorry,” Harry finished lamely, red in the face. Breathing just hadn’t seemed that great of a priority next to communicating how much he hadn’t wanted to kiss Cho. What a fantastic time for her to reciprocate. Snape smoothed his robes and crossed his arms over his chest. And just stood there.
Confused, Harry shifted his weight. He’d been expecting… something. Something violent. Or angry. At the very least assertive. He ran a hand through his hair.

“You’re not…?” he began, but trailed off, not sure what he was asking or whether he should ask it.

“What, jealous?” Severus took a step or two into the room, “Mr. Potter, jealousy would imply a perceived threat on my part.” His fingers set to unfastening the buttons on his outer robes. “Do you mean to say that I should feel threatened by that… girl?” He shrugged out of the heavy black cloth and dropped it over a chair, revealing the tunic, vest, and slacks beneath.

“Oh,” Harry murmured, feeling a rush of arousal at that simple action. “No.” After all, he’d never seen Snape wearing much less than the signature black ensemble; making the removal of his Professorial robes almost a striptease. Harry swallowed hard at the thought. Severus advanced.

“And why is that?” the Potions Master drawled, pushing Harry further into the room with a hand to his chest.

“What?” Harry sat obediently when the back of his legs hit the edge of Severus’ personal desk, and subdued the immediate desire to wrap his legs around the man. He bit his lip instead, and curled his fingers around the edge of the desk.

“Why is it absurd to think I would be jealous?” Severus pointed his wand at Harry’s chest, and the buttons there disengaged themselves at his command. He undid the Gryffindor tie by hand, though, taking his time. And Harry felt the familiar brush of Severus’ influence against his mind, coaxing up memories and images of their interactions, both those wantonly explicit, and subdued. He called up Harry’s fear… his desire… and his actions. Harry didn’t answer the question, didn’t really remember the question, and grabbed Snape’s sleeve instead, anchoring himself.
Severus, in turn, seized his wrist and pulled it aside.

“Potter,” he insisted, voice growing suddenly hard. “To whom do you belong?” That was an easier question. Harry looked at the hand around his wrist, then up at the Potions Master himself. There was something in his expression… something not quite neutral. Not quite… secure. Harry’s toes curled against his trainers.

“You,” he said. “All for you.”

“Indeed.”

When Severus kissed him, the soft, chaste, awkward New Year’s ‘peck’ of Cho Chang’s seemed not only shocking, but positively laughable. Like comparing stones to oranges - dust to wine. Harry pushed into the contact, bit Snape’s tongue, wanting nothing more at that moment than to consummate the New Year. So, he ignored his cautionary voice (as he usually did, honestly) and reached between them to Severus’ belt buckle. The Potions Master even allowed this forwardness, murmuring:

“Eager, aren’t we?” and bit Harry’s neck.

It took him a moment to puzzle out the buckle, but just as he managed it, Severus hissed in pain, and jerked back. Briefly, Harry thought he’d done something himself, but as Severus clutched his arm in just the right place, Harry’s blood went cold with fear.

“What is it?” the Gryffindor asked, as if it wasn’t clear enough. Severus pulled away, and began redressing what little he’d removed.

“Spoke too soon, didn’t I?” was his only reply, directed more to the room in general than to Harry.

“He’s summoning you, isn’t he?” The Gryffindor asked again, insistent, as Severus cast around the room for something. It was the pensieve he was looking for, and, once found, he hastily removed a few strands of glimmering thought, letting them drop down into the basin where they swirled innocently. It was more than a precaution this time, Severus knew. He’d been keeping track of the interrogations and was fully aware of the fact that there were only two left to be had. Lucius Malfoy’s, and his own. And as such, this was surely the night.

“Are you really so dimwitted?” Severus threw back at him. “Accio mask!”

Harry jumped up as the infamous object flew to Snape’s outstretched hand. After what he’d overheard… he had to do something.

“Professor – you can’t go - ” But even as he said the words, he knew how little they would do. Severus Snape could and would do whatever he pleased.

“And what would you have me do?” Severus replied, “Politely decline? Use sense.” But Harry wasn’t feeling too connected to his sense just then, as Severus tore a cloak from the peg beside the door, and turned to leave.

“Professor!” Harry darted forward and grabbed the Potions Master’s wrist, wanting – inexplicably needing to do something, anything to make him stay. But the slender hand was wrenched violently from his grip at once, and Harry stumbled back at the force of it.

“Never grab me, Potter!”

Severus threw the cloak across his shoulders as Harry started a senseless reply:

“But, you grab me all the time - ” and was promptly cut off by fear as Snape seized his upper arm in a painful grip.

“That’s right,” Snape hissed, squeezing viciously. “I grab you.” He threw Harry from him, and Harry tripped and fell. “Do not presume to stand as my equal, boy. Or in my way.” Severus tucked the mask into his robes, sheathing his wand, as Harry watched helplessly from the floor.

“I heard what you told Dumbledore.”

****

Severus cast a brief, unforgiving glance down at him, before turning briskly towards the door.

“And you thought I didn’t know? Please.” Torturously aware of the seconds ticking past, he nevertheless paused at Harry’s next words, plaintive and childlike though they were.

“What if He hurts you?”

“Potter,” Severus replied, hand on the doorknob, voice losing its edge for a scant moment. “I would be quite shocked if He did not.” The door closed soundly over Harry’s response, and Severus was content to pretend he didn’t hear it.

“Come back.”

****

The next 4 hours were the longest of Harry’s life. They passed like years pass – so slowly he thought the clock in Severus’ room must have stopped.

The first half hour or so was spent in an agonizing limbo of nothing – not a twinge nor tingle in his scar. He paced the bedroom for a good part of that time, every once in a while sitting in the high-backed chair or on the bed. But he couldn’t sit still for long – not with the knowledge of what could be happening as he sat. He imagined Snape hurrying off, out of the grounds, then touching his mark and POP! Whisked away, into who knew what sort of despicable dungeon. Of course, he could have just been called to oversee someone else’s torture… but their parting words all but assured him that was not the case.

The not-knowing was torture in itself, but at what must have been nearly three in the morning, the pain finally hit him. It came in a clean burst of seizurous agony that knocked him at once to the floor, vaporizing all of his new-won occlumency like so much rain in a furnace. Voldemort wasn’t angry, oh no. He was furious. Livid. Raving. Harry, acting entirely without benefit of rational thought, curled into a protective ball on the floor. His mind, eclipsed by second-hand torture, could think of nothing but for it to end. He may have lost consciousness for a while – there was no telling.

****

Severus didn’t know what he’d expected upon arrival at the meeting, but to see Lucius Malfoy being dragged off by a pair of anonymous henchmen was certainly not it. His usually immaculate blonde hair looked matted with dirt and blood, and his head hung limply between his shoulders. Unconscious.

Severus had to hand it to the Dark Lord – he was indeed unsettled, as was the clear intention of such an opening scene. And Severus was not a man easily disturbed. Voldemort’s wraith-like entrance, however, bordering rather heavily on the theatrical, somewhat killed the sinister mood.

“So good of you to join us,” The Dark Lord said, sounding every bit the snake he was. The “s” syllables were as grotesquely elongated as his deformed, pallid body, and nearly as revolting. Severus bowed his head in reverence.

“My Lord,” he said, and sounded – Merlin help him, he must have no soul at all –more sincere than a Monk in the presence of God himself. He kissed the wringed talon offered him with absolute piety – didn’t even twitch when two of the willowy, skeletal fingers briefly stroked his jaw before tipping his head up from its bow. Not so much as a twinge in his subordinate expression, despite the revulsion that dripped slow and hot down the back of his throat.

The expression on the Dark Lord’s face (if one could call it a face) was passive, but eager as well, and Severus had just enough time to think, ‘it begins,’ before he was faced with the deadliest wand in the Wizarding World, leveled right at his heart. Again, not a twitch. He did, however, entertain a brief and irrational flash of pride in his life’s work at the realization that Voldemort would have no mere assistant handle this interrogation. He would doll it out himself. Ahh yes, Severus’ life’s work had all lead him here, from the moment he’d taken the mark that still crawled uneasily under his skin.

“Severus Snape, you have been called before your master to confess your every transgression. Do you understand this opportunity?”

“I do, my Lord.” He knew this speech by heart. ‘Have you ever willfully or un-willfully disobeyed the Dark Lord’s wishes?’

“Have you ever willfully or un-willfully disobeyed my wishes?”

“No, my Lord.” ‘Have you anything to confess?’

“Have you anything to confess?”

“No, my Lord.” Yes, Severus had born both witness and executioner to this very event more than enough times to know that these opening questions were a mere formality. And he knew what would happen next, as well.

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TBC