All I Ever Wanted

DISCLAIMER: Warning! I make no claim to any property of J.K. Rowling's, and am in no way profiting by this. I do offer her my sincerest thanks for allowing us this garden of the mind in which we play. Further Warning! This story...and likely any I ever write...are dominated by gay themes and characters. That's how it is, if this in any way makes you uncomfortable...do not read further.


"All I Ever Wanted" ...chap. 7 'Truth Hurts'

Draco stepped through the doors of Snape's inner study, aching with indecision about what he was undertaking. He'd left the Slytherin dorms under a very potent Notice Me Not Charm (which made the eyes of other people simply neglect to notice that he was there.) It wasn't foolproof, but few and far between were those who could see him...unless he did something very obvious and broke the spell.

When he'd left the Slytherin common room in a petulant huff, he had been exhausted from a night so restless from dreams that it had nearly qualified as no sleep at all. It had been followed by a day that was dominated by tension and self-hatred.

Even attempts to distract himself with masturbation had become futile, since Harry's face above him started to haunt every fevered daydream and fantasy he could conjure. Inevitably, each face and body subtly morphed into the one from his dreams, until he was clutching himself on the edge of orgasm and biting back the name of the one he wanted so desperately.

At this moment, it was all he could manage to not turn around and leave the room, the school and this cursed obsession behind. What kept him here was the certain knowledge that no place was safe from what he carried in his mind...or from what he carried in his heart. This was what had to be done, before his facade cracked and every one he'd ever mocked or used got a glimpse of the weak and sorry creature he really was.

Draco was honest enough to admit that some things scared him. Death was a big one, serious injury or being crippled, too. The one thing he truly feared with all his heart, more than any physical pain, was rejection. The thought of being cast aside, unwanted, unneeded, alone and friendless. This terrified him in a way nothing else could. He couldn't risk the loss of his status (the one thing that made his hellish sense of loneliness bearable) for Harry or anyone else. So it came to this...Snape's study, a Pensieve, and Draco Malfoy in the middle of the night. So be it.

Draco made his preparations, then began to search his own mind for the night in question, floating backward in time in short leaps and pausing for reference every few seconds. Soon he had the night of the party in focus. He wasn't prepared for he what he found. Not in the slightest. 'No charms? No hexes? Nothing...bloody nothing?' he thought to himself as he moved through that evening's surreal and whiskey fuddled memories.

Then came the argument with Harry. Draco knew he'd been drunk that night, but it was still strange to see himself so out of control. Harry had made him tense from the start, just by being there, and to compensate, Draco had run his mouth (nothing new there, either), but Harry's reaction had been fiercer than any before.

Draco knew it had been the alcohol that made them both so reckless, but he heard in his mind that last horrible comment Harry had uttered before leaving the room in a rage. Draco saw himself standing there, red-faced and stuttering with rage, for almost a minute before he'd charged after Harry with tears already forming in his eyes...(and thank Merlin he'd fled before others had seen those!)

There was a brief and blurry maze of halls and stairs before he caught up to Harry, who looked like a thundercloud trying to hold in the rain. Draco watched the Pensieve in horror as he saw himself break down in front of Harry Potter! What really hurt was seeing the green-eyed devil look at him that way, full of sorrow and guilt, and then APOLOGIZE...of all the nerve!

Draco's heart leapt when he saw Harry almost fall...those were his own hands reaching out and snatching Harry's robes, his body straining as he yanked the boy to safety with every thing he had. A tumble of bodies...and then HE KNEW.

Draco remembered everything...he was so lost in the Pensieve he was scarcely conscious of the hot tears sliding down his cheeks. So much was clear to him now, they'd both been children, but the rivalries, the strutting and name calling...all of it. Just a pretense...a show to cover what they hadn't been able to put a name to.

They'd looked at one another then...and wanted each other so badly it had hurt to think of it. It had slipped through their fingers; a missed chance at happiness and friendship and so much more, all because they'd started off so terribly wrong. Then they had striven for years to crush any remnant of that tender moment from their minds, rather than admit it had been there all along.

Draco watched numbly as the images moved before him. The first mad kisses, the peeling away of clothes that suddenly constricted, the whispered promises and apologies...all of it. He watched to the end, every second.

He watched a beautiful, gentle and talented man make love to him with a passion that could never have been faked. He saw himself abandon any pretense of control and offer himself up, laboring not to be pleased, but to please someone else who was worthy of the gift they were being offered. He saw the rewards of experiencing real passion play out before him...again and again and again. That night had been unlike any before it, and it bore no resemblance to the petty little encounters that had dominated Draco's sex life for years. Everything he had ever done paled in comparison to this...this outpouring of absolute desire.

Harry had been patient as well as skillful, not because of some supernatural inborn talent or petty magical charm, but because he had been striving with every touch to show that he cared.

His body may have been beautiful and his erection huge and unflagging, but it was his magnificent soul that shone so brightly through it all, ripping apart the walls that Draco had labored his entire life to build around a fragile heart, and bringing light and warmth to every dark place in Draco, like a living sun that seared away any shadow it touched.

When the last of it played before his eyes, two exhausted lovers wrapped in one another's arms, weary smiles on utterly replete faces, Draco quietly spelled the memories back to himself, knelt on the cold flagstones before his trembling limbs could fail, and began to weep.

A lifetime wasted fighting this? A hundred meaningless and empty fucks to avoid this? His asshole of a father would have been so proud! The irony struck him like a knife twisting in his chest.

Draco wept softly at first, just small gasps and whimpers, then deeper, with sobs that wracked his chest and tears that burnt and streamed down until his hands and collar were soaked, until he was no longer conscious of his dignity when he began half-laughing sickly cries at himself and the sham of his life. He didn't care that snot was running down his face or that he had curled into an almost fetal ball as he wailed and keened.

How sickening, to think that, until now, he had tried to tell himself that his life was a good one. Etched into his memory, and burned into his dreams, was uncompromising proof that he had lived a pathetic lie, and robbed himself of every chance at real happiness. There were no illusions left to hide behind, and the truth hurt him in a way that nothing else could have.

He thought he had made some cruel error with the Pensieve when he felt those dreams hands stroke his hair and face, then felt his head gently cradled in a lap, felt his salt-drenched cheeks gently kissed...until he sniffled and squeezed open blurry eyes to look up into twin green oceans that offered only peace and solace. Harry. Harry's eyes were brimming with tears, too.

Draco couldn't find his voice...all that he could manage was a harshly croaked, "Why?!" He knew his own tears well, but why was Harry crying?

The answer came softly, but with a sincerety that struck like lightning through Draco's entire being. "For you."

Draco collapsed into another torrent of tears, unashamed of his loss of control, clinging tightly to Harry's legs while letting go of pain he felt like he'd carried for ten lifetimes...and Harry sat there, a rock of patience, against which the storm of Draco's sorrows crashed time and time again, until at last the fury was gone and all that was left in it's place were two boys on cold stone, warm and safe only because they were in each other's arms, all they ever wanted made suddenly real.

It was Draco who sensed his Warding Spell broken, and he knew who it must be. Clarity struck him and he whispered to Harry with wide and frightened grey eyes, "Snape!"

Harry understood perfectly, put a finger to Draco's lips and drew his Cloak over both of them. Harry lifted Draco in his arms and carried him, Cloaked and silent, to the edge of the door, just before it opened.

Draco reveled in the way he felt at that moment, held close, warm and safe against the chest of someone strong enough to carry him when he could go no further.

As Snape stepped into the room, they slid out like ghosts, quickly leaving behind the classroom and moving down the hall to a place where they could be together in peace.

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Severus Snape was bone tired, but before he could rest, one thing was left to do. Meetings with Death Eaters were grueling for him, often involving torture and mental coercion before he was trusted in their presence. A lifetime of spying had made him a thorough, exacting and cautious man who took nothing for granted.

Though he wanted his bed, this must be done first. Memories of the meeting had to be safely recorded for inspection by the Order. In the unlikely event that something happened to him between now and morning, every detail needed to be safely stowed in the Pensieve for the cause.

Lily would have wanted this of him. Lily who died for his failures...Lily who still haunted him even after almost eighteen years. He would keep going as long as he had to, if it would destroy the creature that took her life, even if it cost his own.

He stood before the Pensieve, wand at ready, when he sensed something amiss, stray thoughts left in his Pensieve?! He tensed instantly, cast a Revealing Charm upon the room only to find nothing, and quickly warded the room to a fare thee well. Once secure, he scanned the Pensieve. Sifting slowly and with great care he isolated the stray thoughts...then viewed them.

His every muscle stiffened as he blanched white as a sheet. He lifted his tired head, as if to implore the heavens for an explanation, then lowered his shoulders in defeat and did what he knew must be done.

First he cleared the Pensieve of foreign thoughts...thoroughly! Then he placed the new memories of this night's meeting into the Pensieve. Severus walked to his desk and rifled through the drawers for what he required.

Seated and comfortable, he penned a pair of notes, then, with a deep breath, he raised his wand to his head and calmy uttered, "OBLIVIATE".

Confused and blinking, Severus looked to his desk and found a note in his own writing, clearly written to himself. This was not surprising in itself, as the rituals of spycraft were very familiar to him. He read the note carefully.

"Severus, it was necessary to Obliviate yourself of a memory so foul and repugnant that the only way to preserve your own sanity and competence was to swiftly expunge it. I cannot risk revealing more, suffice it to say that it was necessary. To ensure that no trace of this absolute horror remains, it is imperative that you first destroy this note, then use the spell again."

Satisfied, Severus dropped the note into a cauldron and burnt it to ash. Then he raised his wand again and uttered the necessary spell. "OBLIVIATE".

Blinking and terribly muddled, more tired than ever, Severus looked at his desk and saw the remaining note. With a concerned glance he read it.

"Severus, you have had a truly trying day. It was necessary to Obliviate yourself twice, have a cup of tea with a few drops of Soothing Potion and go to bed. Your work is done for tonight. PS...Punish Potter with extreme prejudice. Find a reason. Any reason, just do it."

With a sniff of disdain, Severus Snape rose from his desk and headed toward a long deserved rest.