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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.

 

Learning by Numbers
by switchknife

 

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.

 

* FIN *

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