Disclaimer: All characters from the Harry Potter universe belong to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Scholastic Inc., AOL/Time Warner and associated companies. No offence, legal or otherwise, is intended by the online publication of this story. Neither is profit. Make love, not lawsuits!
Notes: Some lessons come at too high a price. Written for the 'Learning by Numbers' challenge at Pornish Pixies, in which we were supposed to illustrate the differences between lovers.
When Harry loses his virginity, at the age of sixteen, it is to his
godfather's lover. Ex-lover. Perhaps that's why Harry wants it: perhaps those
hands remember something of Sirius, perhaps this is all of Sirius that Harry can
have. Remus is almost ridiculously gentle, his scarred skin rough-soft under
Harry's hands, his mouth hesitant, bitter, guilty. Remus is so gentle that Harry
thinks he's out to prove something, out to prove that he's not a beast, and he
wonders if Remus were this gentle with Sirius too. When Remus touches Harry's
cock it is with trembling hands, smoothing over it with such care, such
tenderness, that Harry nearly sobs with the need to come--but Remus doesn't
hurry, he never does, mouth warm and open against Harry's throat, tasting sweat
and youth, hands moving along young thighs before returning again, almost as an
afterthought, to Harry's erection. He takes the time to learn Harry's body as if
it were a subject all of its own--each hitch of breath, each pull of taut
muscle, each flexing tendon, each sobbing moan. Harry feels wet all over, from
his sweat-shivering skin to his thighs to his cock, as the heat rises between
them--and Harry comes again, and again, and again, wondering if he'll die from
it--but Remus stays achingly hard, stretching Harry for what feels like hours,
fingers strange and hurt and beautiful inside him, before he deigns to enter.
When he does, Harry lets out a whine that sounds like pain, and Remus
almost pulls back--but Harry's legs wrap around his waist, stubborn as ever,
pulling him in again and again until he comes. Harry watches Remus' face
carefully, watches the guilt melt into an expression of almost-agony--and it is
only at times like these, with Remus tensing and spurting hotly inside him, hair
soft and tangled in Harry's hands, that Harry's sure Remus isn't thinking of
Sirius at all.
Neither Dumbledore nor any of the other professors question Harry's need to see
Remus--and when Remus sits beside them at the staff table none of them look at
him, even though they sanctioned this. Knowing Dumbledore, perhaps they even
planned it--to give Harry something to think about, something other than death.
Only Snape still sneers at Remus, even though he says nothing--and sometimes
Harry thinks he sees Snape's eyes burn with something more bitter than hatred,
but he's sure that's not the case.
When Remus dies, one year later, it is on a botched mission for the Order--and
Harry gets an owl, Remus' own small, barely feathered creature--carrying the
note Harry knows Remus had written a few nights ago. Harry reads it again and
again over breakfast, even though he barely sees it--ignores Hermione's frantic
words to his left, Ron's awkward gestures to his right. It doesn't say anything
he didn't expect, to be honest, the same things about loving him and that he
should take care of himself--nothing more than that, nothing more, and Harry
eventually folds up the note, puts it in his pocket, and stands up. He notices
Snape watching him from across the hall, face expressionless--and when
Dumbledore stops him at the door, voice urgent, Harry simply says: 'I know,' and
walks out.
After graduation Harry starts working for the Order, as he'd always known he
would, taking up the DADA position left vacant by Remus. He still wakes up from
dreams in which Remus is holding him, touching him, sucking him--he still wakes
up to the phantom scent of Remus' sweat, rich as the monsoon and somehow clean,
before he showers, wanks himself off, and heads for his first class. Everyone
around him walks on egg-shells, as though expecting him to crack--but he does
his job well, almost mercilessly well, until the looks of concern turn into
those of respect--and Harry wants to laugh at them, laugh, because they want to
think that he's okay. He wonders if Sirius haunted Remus like this--if Remus
also stopped, sometimes, at a particular turn of phrase or a certain taste or
smell--remembering suddenly the shape of a long-gone body, the ways of it, its
undeniability.
It is only when he resumes his Occlumency lessons with Snape--at his own
initiative, rather than at Dumbledore's behest--that he remembers there was
always one person he could never deceive. But Snape says nothing when he catches
a whiff of Harry's dreams--his eyes only narrow, expression as unreadable as it
had been that day in the hall--and he spits 'Legilimens!' again.
The first time Harry succeeds not only at shielding, but at breaking all of
Snape's barriers, he catches sight of some of Snape's dreams himself--and the
shock of it sends him to his knees, gasping, heart pounding in disbelief. Snape
makes a strange, painful noise--more like a snarl than a scream--and suddenly
Snape's peculiar intensity, his half-bitter glances at Remus, make utter,
frightening sense--and Harry almost stammers I-I'm sorry or Don't
touch me, but then Snape's hands are clenched in his collar, hauling him up,
and Harry's wand clatters to the floor from his nerveless fingers as Snape
throws him against the wall, teeth bared, and crushes Harry's mouth with his
own.
Snape's as different a lover to Remus as Harry could have imagined--although the
term 'lover' doesn't fit, because there's no love involved, only a mutual
devouring with tooth and tongue and spit, Snape fucking him so hard that he
screams, that he almost blacks out, that his bitten mouth tastes of tears and
blood. There is no softness here, and Harry realizes distantly that he needs it
this way--the rough scrape of Snape's stubble, his nails, his teeth is what he
needs to forget Remus. Snape never takes the time to know his body, to caress
it, to string him tight with arousal the way Remus did--instead he's as
merciless in this as he is in all things, hand rough and hot on Harry's cock,
moving so fast that Harry can barely breathe, pushing Harry's hips down with his
own when Harry tries to arch. He never pulls back when Harry makes sounds of
pain--his black eyes gleam, with a light so feral that Harry wonders if he
finally has found a wolf, and Snape draws back only for a moment before
plunging in again. Sex with him is awkward, his elbows banging Harry's ribs, his
hips sharp angles against Harry's--and his weight seems to rest on all the wrong
places, as if Harry's body were a map drawn out for a different traveller. For
Remus. But Snape always makes him come--so hot and so hard that he's left dizzy,
faster than he ever had with Remus, and Snape's hair doesn't tangle in Harry's
fingers like Remus' did, so Harry is left scrabbling in grease before his hands
slip down to Snape's shoulders and he digs his nails in, deep enough to draw
blood, and Snape hisses and thrusts in so deep that Harry's hips lift off the
bed.
Dumbledore does look at Harry this time, face flickering with something
that might be disappointment--but Harry thinks he can go fuck himself with his
opportunity costs, with his battle plans, if Harry doesn't deserve to have this.
Harry's skin smells of Snape in the mornings, so much so that he can barely
remember Remus' scent--and his voice is invariably hoarse for his first morning
class, mouth fresh with mint but still remembering, against all odds, the salty
heat of Snape's come. He sits across from Snape at staff meetings and barely
gives him a glance--no different from when he'd begun teaching--and at meetings
for the Order he's always polite to Snape, talking about methodologies,
technicalities, tactics--because what he and Snape do in private has nothing, of
course, to do with anything else--it's not like he's Harry lover, his boyfriend,
it's not like Harry cares. If, at certain times during the day, he remembers the
hot scrape of Snape's tongue over his ear--if he remembers the clench of those
hands around his thighs, parting them--if he remembers the shape, so unique, so
deeply veined, so ugly, of Snape's cock--these things mean nothing, because
they're only sex, because this is nothing like what he had with Remus, whose
soft shadow seems to retreat almost to silence in Harry's mind.
He's the guilty one now.
As Harry's Occlumency training comes to an end he's send out to the field,
always with a partner--a partner who's often Snape. Sometimes they fuck before a
mission, after a day of teaching classes, against Snape's desk or on his bed,
and Harry washes down the taste of Snape's come with a shot of firewhiskey, and
Snape traces his fingers along Harry's bruises, once, before getting up and
getting dressed. They discuss the mission, the meeting points and the
targets--often disbanded Death Eaters--and Snape doesn't kiss him before they
leave, but his fingers are tight around Harry's when they hold up the portkey.
Snape speaks the name of the destination--calmly, clearly--and he doesn't look
at Harry before they disappear.
Time isn't measured in years anymore, but in missions, numbers, casualties. Yet
Harry manages to remember that two years have passed since Remus' death, and he
still has Remus' cloak, tattered and faintly scented with woodsmoke, that
Snape refuses to look at when he visits Harry's quarters. They fuck when they
can, which isn't often, and if Harry's injured on the field Snape doesn't come
to see him, so Harry doesn't return the favor--and time passes until Harry can
barely remember Remus' body, almost never dreams of it, and gets hard at Snape's
voice instead. They barely talk, the two of them, which is hardly
surprising--they haven't forgiven each other for existing yet--and Harry sees a
strange irony in that, a humor that perhaps only Snape can appreciate, but he's
never seen Snape smile, never, not in any way that doesn't resemble a sneer.
Sometimes Harry remembers, with a sense of wonder, that Remus used to smile--a
soft curve he barely remembers the taste of--but when Snape finally sees him,
after a month of incompatible timetables, all thoughts of smiles leave his mind
and he's hoisted onto a desk, robes pushed up to his thighs, Snape's fingers
frantic on his cock. Snape doesn't even speak to him, doesn't even look; and
Harry's mouth is left open, gasping, against Snape's own.
It is only when an owl arrives, one morning, for the Headmaster--who reads it in
an unusual silence before looking up at Harry, face solemn--that Harry realizes
what he had with Snape had meant anything at all. It is only when Dumbledore's
hands him the letter, eyes dark with something that might be grief, that
Harry breaks. No. Not again. Not again, his mind's saying, but his mouth
says: 'When,' and Dumbledore's says, 'Last night,' and Harry says, 'Was there
anything for me,' and Dumbledore says, 'No, I'm afraid there wasn't, Harry.'
And Harry doesn't make a scene--although everyone at the staff table seems
tensed for it--instead he stands up, pushes his chair back slowly, and leaves
with a poise that almost rivals Snape's.
He doesn't come to classes that day, or the next, but no one says anything--a
replacement teacher is found quietly, discreetly, and Dumbledore sends Harry his
meals in Snape's quarters, which he hasn't left since the news.
Snape didn't leave him a letter, of course--he and Snape hardly ever had
anything to talk about, anyway. He stares at Snape's potions, at his spotless,
student-scrubbed cauldrons, at his meticulous notes, piled high on his desk. He
stares at the bed, but doesn't lie down in it; sleeps on Snape's couch instead,
the leather comfortingly unfamiliar against his skin, and doesn't dream of Snape
when he finally falls asleep.
When he emerges from the dungeons a few days later it is to attend the reading
of Snape's will in Dumbledore's office--Remus hadn't had one, but Snape seems to
have been particular as always. Harry sits quietly through the meeting, hearing
that Snape has left his personal library to Hogwarts, his remedial potions to
Pomfrey, his research to a certain Alosius Bramble, apparently an old Potions
colleague, and his pensieve--of all things--to Harry.
His pensieve.
Harry feels his mouth twisting as the lawyer, a scrawny, bespectacled man in
brown robes, finishes reading the will. Dumbledore asks him to leave. Harry
takes note of Dumbledore's eyes--tired now, and not so blue--and Dumbledore
tells him that they've found the man who killed Severus Snape, and that he is in
the Ministry's custody.
There isn't much of a choice, is there.
Harry's up and out of the door before Dumbledore finishes his sentence--and he's
striding out of the main hall, Zephyr in hand, and mounting it to fly to the
Ministry.
All the while he remembers Snape's voice berating him--those interminable
training sessions, with Snape hissing that Harry was too weak, that he
didn't have what it took to fight the Death Eaters, that he didn't have
nerve, the sheer fucking nerve, to even cast the Cruciatus.
But Harry's learnt how to now. He's learnt how to want to.
Fudge doesn't stand in his way when he demands access to the prisoner--except to
point out sharply that we need him alive for interrogation--and Harry
simply says, calmly, 'Let me. Just. Let me.' The Aurors step aside, at
something in Harry's eyes--he is the Boy Who Lived, after all--and Harry steps
into the prisoner's cell, and barely notices a tuft of dirty hair, shoeless
feet, a bruised face, before he draws his wand.
The Aurors stand silent outside as screams echo down the hall.
They flinch when Harry emerges, but Harry's robes are clean, with not a fleck of
blood on them. Past the open door they glimpse a quivering figure, still
alive, face covered with spit, gibbering.
'He's yours,' Harry says, expressionless, another name circling in his mind. The
name of another Death Eater, so graciously revealed by this one--a name that was
linked, three years ago, to Remus Lupin's death.
He thinks of Snape's voice berating him, but he knows that he has finally
learned. He has the name. He has the location. He's dizzy with the after-effects
of casting the Cruciatus, but he mounts his broom anyway--just one more face,
one more crumpling face, and he'll be done.