The Difference

Title: The Difference
Author: Drachengreif
Rating: PG
Pairing: If you squint your eyes and look really close it\'s HP/SS
Archive: My site I guess, anybody else just ask. :)
Feedback: Drachengreif@freenet.de
Disclaimer : All the characters you can recognize aren\'t my own and I make no profit of this.
Warnings: weirdness?
Summary: What makes the difference?
Author\'s Notes: My beta advised me to mark this as poetry since it in part is. It\'s still a story in it\'s own rights mind you, but it was written with a certain turn of words in mind.
Beta: My dear Vesta who dived into the dirty work of making my story more understandable, despite my stubbornness. *g*
2 Note: For all that have seen \'Spirited Away\' it was Haku in both his forms that I pictured here. :)Although it\'s not really him.
For all of you that don\'t know who I\'m talking about: go look him up. He\'s one cute guy. Too bad that film has no slash-potential whatsoever. *sigh*


***

\"I am not my father! Can\'t you see the difference?!\"

Severus Snape looked stonily at the frustrated boy. Taking stock of his whole appearance, black eyes boring into green ones, assessing his very soul.

\"No.\"

Here he stood.

His enemy was finally dead.

Run through with the sword of Gryffindor.

His blood silently seeping into the black earth.

The whole battle field had stilled, the combatants keeping their breath.

Dark and Light alike.

Waiting for whatever came next.

And Harry finally turned his head, looking at his most loathed Professor who stood by his side, silently; as always watching.

Still the man was seeing only a Potter.

Still keeping him safe despite his hatred.

Maybe Voldemort\'s memories had crawled into Harry\'s head and taken up home there, because, all of a sudden, Harry knew how to change it.

He knew now, how to take away the dark look in those black eyes.

Silently the young man crouched down, dipping two fingers into the blood of the Dark Lord.
Getting up, he closed the distance between himself and the potions Master, lifting his hand, the blood trickling coldly down his arm.

The older man slowly tilted his head to the side, baring his neck.

Where there only should have been warm skin, Harry\'s fingers encountered metal instead.

A collar of gold.

A beautiful thing.

Locked for eternity, intended to keep its wearer prisoner.

Until Voldemort\'s blood touched the lock.

A low click and it fell. Lying on the ground like a dead snake.

And Severus was caught in a maelstrom of change.

The years flew away from him like a flock of birds. His features changed, becoming those of a stranger in these lands.

When it ended he still stood there, his clothes now far too big. He softly waved a hand hidden in a wing-like sleeve and the dark robes started to change too. Turning into a white shirt and off white loose shorts.

He\'d become a child, a young boy, with slanted topaz eyes that held no pupils. And still his expression was cold. Cold and assessing.

Everyone stood riveted, watching the strange happeni


Then Severus spoke.

\"Now, I can see the difference.\" He seemed to move the next word in his mouth, as if trying out how it lay on his tongue. \"Harry.\"

And then he smiled.

With a slender hand he gripped Harry\'s collar, pulling him down, kissing him lightly on the corner of his mouth. It was the barest of touches, a soft flutter of breath on breath.
Severus stepped back, bowing smoothly.

A sudden current of air went past the young hero and Severus was gone.

Loneliness settled into Harry\'s heart. Making it heavy.

He\'d lost something precious without ever having it.

Now he did not know how to ever live without.

In his mind still burned the image of the dragon ducking down and jumping heavenwards, leaving the earth behind in an instant.

The snakelike body, the pearly white scales shimmering in the sun, sharp silvery claws digging into the ground a short moment before taking off, the long whiskers moving gracefully in unseen waters. The very same waters that had coloured its wild mane.

Harry did not look after him.

Later he heard that the dragon had flown towards east.

This was the day it rained flowers.

Cherry blossoms.

For hours and hours. Until they covered the carnage on the field, shrouding it mercifully in a soft rosy haze.

By the next day the flowers were gone, but not only them, the dead were also gone. Regardless of their sides they had vanished. Resting in greater peace now than the living did.

Only grass was left behind, summer-smelling grass that moved silently in the wind, as if it always had been there.

The young saviour had gone too.

He\'d packed only the essential necessities into a little backpack and left.

Left towards east, where the sun was rising in a rainbow of colours.


Fin


Guess it\'s time for a little bit of explanation now, huh?
First of all, I never could quite believe that a grown man would act as childish as Severus did in the fifth book. I only thought \'Can\'t be. Why d hed he be that way?\'
Him still \'being\' a child seemed logical somehow.
As for the dragon thing... I once read a book \'The Wolfsprince\' to be exact. In this book there was a man behaving a lot like canon-Snape, vengeful, cruel and rather petty.
And this man was a dragon. A chained one. And he hated it.
Obviously. His freedom had been stolen after all. And I guess it would explain Snape too.
As for the Cherry blossoms...
Well Sev is a chinese dragon. They are symbols of light and life and so on... Not to mention that cherry-blossoms are viewed as things of beauty, in japan at least.
Yes it\'s quite an intermixing of eastern philosophies, but what can I say I\'m a victim of Anime and Manga slash. Love them I do. *g*

Drachengreif