Heat, Light and the Properties of Plants

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Chapter published 08 Mar 2006
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Chapter 6 Memories

Hogwarts was slowly returning to normal as the news of Voldemort\'s defeat spread and parents felt safe in returning their children to the school.
One evening early in April supper had just begun in the Great Hall. Professor McGonagall was complementing Snape on the performance of the Slytherin Quiddich team. \"Very well done on re-forming it so quickly, Severus. The pupils need some sort of relaxation.\"
\"They get quite enough relaxation -\" Snape broke off, his voice catching in his throat. Startled, Professor McGonagall followed the direction of his gaze, then smiled. A newcomer had just entered the hall and was making his way towards them. \"Hello, Professor McGonagall. Professor Snape.\" He nodded politely to each of them before sitting down at the table between Professor Flitwick and Hermione Granger. \"Thank you for inviting me.\"
\"Welcome, Harry,\" said Professor McGonagall, \"it\'s good to see you again.\"
\"Dressing up as your Mum, I see,\" sneered Snape. \"It\'s no big improvement, Potter.\" But Professor McGonagall wasn\'t the only one to notice that for the rest of the meal he couldn\'t take his eyes off the young man.
As for Harry, his heart had started thumping wildly when he first saw Snape; he felt a strange mixture of emotions he was reluctant to identify. So he turned away from the sight of his former teacher and began to talk to Hermione.
“I didn\'t expect to see you at High Table,” he began. “Don\'t tell me you\'ve passed your NEWTs already and taken up teaching!”
“Don\'t be silly, Harry,” replied Hermione. “Of course I\'ve not passed them already. But I am helping out with some of the first year classes – I thought it was the least I could do.”
“Are you the only one of our year here so far?” Harry asked her, helping himself to vegetables.
“Well, Neville Longbottom was here – he\'s been helping Professor Sprout grow plants for her Herbology classes – but his grandmother died suddenly and he\'s had to go home to arrange her funeral.”
“Poor Neville,” said Harry. “He\'ll have to look after his parents now, too.”
“I think they\'re more or less fixtures at St Mungo\'s, although I did hear something about a new treatment they were trying there. Oh, and Ron is planning to come back after Easter to try and get a few NEWTs as well.”
Harry suspected this was more because Hermione herself was at Hogwarts than because Ron had developed a sudden desire for qualifications. “Has he said anything to you about, well, you know?” He risked a quick glance at the brooding figure of Professor Snape, then looked away hurriedly.
Hermione smiled kindly at Harry. “He\'s still very cross with you, but don\'t worry, he\'ll get over it.”
“And, er,?”
“Ginny? She\'s gone to Beauxbatons, Fleur managed to get her in.”
“Oh, right.”
Harry fell silent, and concentrated on his meal.
As they started on their puddings, Hermione asked if Harry had heard about Seamus Finnegan, who had been arrested by Muggle police on St Patrick\'s night.
“Arrested?” exclaimed Harry. “What did he do?”
“Apparently he Transformed Big Ben into a giant shamrock just before it was due to strike midnight,” said Hermione.
Harry laughed. “Good for Seamus! How come I didn\'t hear anything about that?”
“It wasn\'t funny, Harry,”said Hermione seriously. “The Minister of Magic was furious – it took the Ministry ages to hush it up, they had to modify memories for half of London. And the Minister had to have a meeting with the Muggle Prime Minister, he always hates that.”
“So what\'s happened to Seamus?”
“He\'s still in a Muggle prison – the Minister said it would serve him right – but now the police think they arrested him for being drunk and disorderly, and refusing to pay his fine. He should be out soon.”
Towards the end of supper Harry asked Professor McGonagall about Hagrid. \"We buried him at the edge of the forest, Potter,\" she said. \"Professor Flitwick charmed the rhododendron bushes around his grave to bloom all year round, in his memory.\" Harry, who had always associated Hagrid with scary monsters rather than flowers, looked nonplussed for a moment. Judging by the sneer on his face, Snape was thinking much the same.
\"I\'d like to go and pay my respects,\" said Harry, getting up. \"On the edge of the forest?\"
\"Yes, near his old hut,\" replied Professor McGonagall. \"I\'ll show you if you like.\"
\"No, I\'ll show him,\" came the unexpected interruption from Professor Snape, who was rising to his feet. \"Follow me, Potter\" and he strode out of the hall, his black robes swirling, Harry followed rather apprehensively as Professor McGonagall and Hermione looked knowingly at one another.

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Harry knelt quietly for a few moments beside Hagrid\'s grave, remembering the big gamekeeper and how kind he\'d always been. He half expected a snarky comment from Snape but the man just stood silently behind him. Harry took a deep breath and got to his feet. \"Guess I\'d better go and find my guest room,\" he said.
\"No, don\'t go yet,\" came the unexpected reply. Snape cleared his throat and added awkwardly, \"You\'ve not seen all the changes in the grounds yet, walk down here with me and I\'ll show you the remembrancegarden Professor Sprout\'s created.\"
They walked down a grassy path, between enchanted bushes smelling sweetly of flowers. Harry wondered what the tall dark figure striding silently beside him was really thinking. Eventually they came to a little grassy plot set with blossoming trees, ghostly in the evening light. Snape came to a halt under one of these and looked gravely at Harry.
\"Mr Potter,\" he began, and stopped. After a painful pause he went on \"I never thanked you for saving my life.\"
\"I didn\'t think you were all that glad that I had,\" Harry said bitterly. \"You said you\'d rather you\'d died than be bound to me.\"
\"You misunderstood me there, I think,\" said Snape quietly. “At the time, I just didn\'t want to go on living. I was furious you\'d brought me back – that anyone had. It was nothing...personal.”
“And now?” whispered Harry.
“Now...I\'m not so sure.”
They gazed deeply into each others eyes. Harry became aware that for once, Snape\'s impenetrable wards were not in place. He had a glimpse of such turmoil, such dark agony that he gasped aloud, tears running down his face. Then it was gone, as if a furnace door had slammed on the fires within. Snape stared at him, his face stony. \"Don\'t presume to be sorry for me, Mr Potter,\" he spat. But Harry tentatively reached out to the older man. \"Blood, tears and seed, remember,\" he murmured. \"If I can\'t be sorry for you, who can?\"
Severus Snape gave a wordless groan and seized Harry in his arms. He bent his head to give Harry a long, passionate kiss on the lips, uncaring that all the while blossom fell softly down on him from the tree above and shone like pale stars in his curtains of black hair.
Harry didn\'t resist, at first because he was still shaken from his glimpse into Severus\'s soul, and then because the deep, urgent kiss was awakening an answering need in his own body.
Eventually Snape drew back, frowning as if trying to make his mind up about something, then he said \"Before you get too sorry for me, Harry Potter, there\'s something I think you\'d better see...\"

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Harry stood uncomfortably just inside Snape\'s office. A familiar shallow basin stood on the table between them; Dumbledore\'s old Pensieve. The scene brought back bad memories of four years earlier, when a reluctant Snape had been attempting to teach Occlumency to an even more reluctant Harry.
\"Do we have to do this?\" he asked.
\"You need to see it,\" muttered Snape. \"I\'m not proud of what happened, but it\'s only fair to warn you about me.\" He touched his wand to his forehead, carefully removing several shining silver tendrils and transferring them to the Pensieve. Then he stepped back and gestured Harry towards the basin. \"After you.\"
Harry bent forward, took a deep breath, and plunged his face under the swirling silver surface. He felt the familiar somersaulting sensation, ending up standing in the corner of a dark little room. A moment later he felt a hand on his shoulder, looking round he found Snape had arrived and was standing behind him. The man nodded silently towards the bed which took up most of the room. A much younger Snape was sitting on the edge of the bed staring maliciously down at a teenage boy kneeling in front of him.
The boy was naked apart from a heavy metal chain round his neck, the man was wrapped in a long black cloak. But as Harry watched, the younger Snape let the cloak fall open, revealing that he wore nothing underneath. Harry was shocked to see the size of his erection, he only had a brief glimpse of it however before the man seized the boy by the hair and dragged his head down on to his lap.
The boy\'s head bobbed up and down as he energetically sucked on the man\'s cock for what seemed like hours. Eventually the wizard shuddered and fell back, his hands dropping limply from the boy\'s hair. The boy gulped, swiping his arm across his mouth.
Snape leaned back against the pillows, frowning. Occasionally he gave a spiteful tug at the boy\'s hair. Finally he said, \"Well, did you enjoy that?\" The boy muttered something incoherent. \"Because,\" Snape spat out, \"your...pimp...told me that last time you complained you didn\'t \'enjoy it\' with me.\" Snape pulled viciously at the boy\'s hair to raise his face, then hooked a long bony finger under his chin, forcing the boy to look at him. \"We can\'t have you not enjoying it, can we?\" he sneered, making a sudden movement with his other hand. The boy flinched away but the man wasn\'t about to hit him, he was pulling his wand out of the sleeve of his cloak. \"Engorgio,\" he sneered pointing the wand at the lad\'s limp penis. It immediately sprang to attention, the wizard seized it roughly, and quickly and brutally pumped the boy to climax.
Snape wasn\'t through, however; he picked up the wand and snapped \"Engorgio\" once more and repeated the process again and again. \"Are you enjoying it yet?\" he sneered. The boy\'s penis was sore and bleeding, he was hysterically pleading with Snape to stop, but the man wouldn\'t listen.
Eventually, either because he got tired of his cruel sport or because the boy\'s anguish had brought his own cock to fresh hardness, he dropped his wand and struck the boy a brutal blow. \"Turn over,\" he growled, \"It\'s my turn to enjoy myself.\" And forcing the boy over onto his stomach, he suddenly thrust his thick stiff length into the boy\'s dry arsehole. Shuddering, Snape pulled back, shrugging off his cloak. Sweat glistened on his pale back as he groaned and panted with each fresh thrust. The boy was screaming by now but Snape was merciless, pounding savagely away with deep driving strokes.
At last it was over. The boy huddled crying on the bed as Snape put on his cloak and strode over to the door. Harry felt a firm grip on his upper arms as the older Snape pulled him backwards. They rose up out of the now dimming depths of the Pensieve, but glancing back Harry was just in time to see the younger Snape carelessly flick his wand at the boy\'s bloodied arse and mutter \"Reparo\" before sweeping through the door and disappearing.
Back in the office a shaken Harry leaned against the desk, rather pale. He looked up at Snape, noticing that he\'d apparently found time to change into an enveloping black cloak, disturbingly like the one his younger self had been wearing in the memory. \"Are you all right?\" Snape asked, looking at him in concern. \"These sorts of memories can be rather...intense.\"
\"How could you,\" Harry whispered. \"You enjoyed hurting him.\" But what appalled Harry most of all was that in some dark corner of himself, the scene had actually turned him on. And from the way Snape was now looking at him, it had had a similar effect on him. Snape whispered huskily, \"Time to adjourn to the bedroom, Harry.\"
The youth gave a horrified giggle. Was viewing Snape\'s sordid memories going to be a lead-up to sex, the way he\'d heard Muggles watched porn videos to turn them on? And from the amused smirk on Snape\'s face, Harry suspected he was using legilimency too. He was sure of it when the wizard inquired idly, \"What\'s a VCR?\"
\"It\'s a Muggle device for...\" began Harry, then caught himself. \"Get the fuck out of my head!\" he snapped, slamming up the wards he\'d finally, in those last few months before the final showdown with Voldemort, learnt to employ. Snape staggered back in shock. Then, recovering, he eyed Harry curiously. \"Well, well, it seems I\'ve underestimated you yet again.\" He gasped, pulling the younger man towards him and burying his face against his neck. \"Who knows,\" he groaned indistinctly between kisses \"you may even be strong enough...\" Despite himself, Harry lifted his hand to Snape\'s black shoulder-length hair and began to stroke it. \"Strong enough for what, Severus?\" he murmured. Snape whispered something indistinctly against Harry\'s neck. Afterwards Harry wasn\'t sure what he\'d said, it sounded almost like \"...to save me.\"

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

What happens next? Will they have sex at last? Will Severus hurt Harry in bed? Do you care? Watch out for the next exciting installment, coming soon to a computer near you.......