Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/109825. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Choose_Not_To_Use_Archive_Warnings, Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Category: M/M Fandom: Harry_Potter_-_Rowling Relationship: Harry_Potter_/_Severus_Snape Additional Tags: Drabble_Series Series: Part 4 of HP_Drabbles Stats: Published: 2010-08-28 Chapters: 21/22 Words: 3067 ****** Razor Valentine ****** by Cluegirl Summary All of my Snape/Harry drabbles in one convenient place -- one 'chapter' per drabble. ***** A World Not So Black Or White ***** "I don't want to hear it anymore! I don't care what you think you know about me, you don't!" "I do. I've seen inside your cramped little mind, boy. You have no subtlety." "I don't need sub – I don't need it! I don't need this poison from you! If you want to help me, then do it. If you want to kill me, then bloody well do that, just for GOD's sake, please make up your fucking mind!" "My mind? Rest assured, that is quite settled where you're concerned, you insolent –" ... "So is mine." "What...mph. What are you doing?" "Don't... want to... hear it!" "Merlin! You cannot want-" "Just because you've seen my mind... doesn't mean you've seen...my...heart!" ***** A Winter's Tale ***** The snow is warm. The winds whisper-howl it in his ears, which have long since gone numb from his own shouting. "Stop, damn you!" He bawls against the gale, hearing no more than a whisper, "The lake! Too close!" But the dark smudge before him fades further into static. The snow is warm... but the ice... He apparates. Reckless, stupid, insane, and simply asking to get splinced, but he does it, driven by the shadowy thought of green, startled eyes staring up out of the lake ice till spring. To Harry. He thinks, desperately through the spell, take me to him! And he is there -- numb fingers clutching the robe, shaking the stunned, pixie- led glass out of those mosel eyes. "Professor? You came back for me?" Back? A shadow looms, self-smirking, life-mocking. The snow is warm, but the ice is hot. His shout is drowned by the deafening crack. ***** Harry Sorted Into Slytherin ***** "Explain." Harry looked down, sighed. What would be the point? "It wasn't fair, and it made me angry." "And so you hit him?" "But he was so much littler, and there were three of them, and I don't care who his bloody father is-" Harry flinched as the hand closed on his shoulder, fierce and tight. Snape pulled him close, black eyes hard and fierce and possessive. "Have I not kept you safe these many years, Harry? Have I not protected you, from Quirrel, from Black, even from yourself?" Harry hated having to nod, so he looked down until those familiar fingers caught his chin and raised it "Have I ever given you cause to doubt my word? Harry shook his head, then he was kissed briefly. "Then let me promise you," Snape growled, "that if you do not STOP provoking the Malfoys, I WILL tan your arse for you!" ***** A New Understanding ***** "Be silent!" Snape roars. "I won't!" Harry counters, nose to nose, screaming raw, "He's USING you! He'll get you killed! Everyone can see it but YOU! Why won't you understand?" Snape rolls away shaking as he reaches for his robes. He knows it is true, all of it. He knows the old man will send him to his doom one day, and he will go, and leave this green-eyed miracle behind. 'It is his curse' he wants to say, 'it's not like he wants to' and 'if not he, then whom?' But he does neither. Instead, he extends his arm, turns his brand to the light, and his lover's stricken gaze. "I am built for use, Harry -- a tool of destruction. Would you have me die of rust instead?" And the boy seizes his arm, presses dry, cold lips against the scar. "Please, Severus; leave the dying to me." ***** Some wild idea in a big white bed, Now you know better than that, I said ***** Snape takes Harry across his desk; hard, gaspingly desperate, with scrolls and ink and quills fleeing their chaotic coupling. The wood creaks, skates across the stones, and when they come, the echoes crack throughout the room. Snape takes Harry in his armchair; the boy writhing in his lap, grinding to music neither needs to hear. Thin breast bared to his teeth, marked with garnet kisses as quidditch grip winds in his scalp. Coming there is a buried sigh, and a shivering grip. Snape takes Harry on the hearthrug, knees pressed hard-back, skin guilded with sweat and firelight, eyes half-lidded as they rock like the ocean, one into the other. They stare, and come silently together in the flickering light. Harry asks after the bed. And the next time, Snape takes him up against the wall. ***** Limpid, Apotheosis, Surcease ***** I search for words to frame you sometimes, when exhaustion unwinds you in my chambers. I thumb through decades of crumbling erudition, seeking words enough to spin a golden cage... But no. No cage could contain you, and though your apotheosis might render it a fitting symbol, your reality would shatter it and its maker irrevocably. A net of stars then; threaded like promises I know better than to speak, spanning whisper-taut across the vast, limpid gulf over which you dance, all unaware of the danger. Reckless, daring, brilliant creature! Soft, vulnerable, needy child. I do not know whether to shake fear into your eyes, or to clutch you to my chest and pray for the strength to shield you from the terror. But fear is for foolish old men like me, when the firelight shadows bank your glow. There are no words, surcease lies in your silent touch alone. ***** It's the end of the world as we know it ***** "Must I?" He didn't answer, merely stared the pleading look out of those green eyes, and waited until resignation slouched into its place. They both knew it could be worse. They both woke nightly from horror dreams, gasping around the knowledge clenched like a fist, or a deep-thrust cock in their throats. So much worse. What was this little step now? It was the first of many little steps. A long, slow slither down a come- and blood-slick slope, which ended in the nightmares. The only path before them; no Rod, and no Staff for comfort. The Shepherd's grinning skull perched in the middens below. "Yes, Potter," Snape handed him the collar and knelt, lifting his hair off his neck with hands that did not shake at all, "You must." ***** Unpleasant but good. ***** It hurt. Not like Cruciatus hurt -- this was a simpler, cleaner pain. A pain of desk- edge cutting creases into thighs and hard straining bollocks, of splinters under his fingernails, and the red and gold necktie strangling the blood from his hands. A pain of clean burning blood and shame in his cheeks, pain and tears and release in his eyes. A pain of friction that rolled over him in waves, inexorable as the tide, until all the little, creeping frights drowned under it, and the thousand collected shames dashed to bits on the jagged rocks. Even orgasm was a blinding spike, speared on the cock of one who would never stop hating him. Burned up in cold fire, remade stronger by the sting of come in his savaged core. He survived once more, and Potter's parting kiss on his neck was the only promise he knew he could trust. ***** Seek ye not the living among the dead ***** Harry can always find the Mirror now. He knows the Headmaster moves it -- each time he finds it in a different place. He could tell him not to bother, if he cared to talk. He always knows where it is, because it aches in his mind like a canker. But this year is different. His parents don't look back, and he has no Philosopher's stone. Erised is always grey now, flat, blank around him, and if he stares hard enough, he can almost see the surface wafting in a phantom breeze. "Please." Harry whispers, "Let me see him. I love him." But the grey only shimmers behind him, giving birth to a towering blackness in a slide of invisible fabric. Harry's breath seizes in his throat, but there is no mistaking that voice. Snape's hands slide around Harry's body in the mirror too. "You will not find him here." ***** Get this thing off of me! ***** "Potter..." Black eyes shone, rimmed with white in the gloom as they strained to follow the movement, "No one is amused but you. End this farce at once!" Harry took a step, hissing gently, coaxingly, only to stop short as the speckled band looped tight around Snape's throat. "Damn it, Potter!" Snape gasped, managing not to flinch as the serpent reared up beside his ear, spitting and flaring its hood. "I'm trying!" The brat whispered, sweat popping across his naked shoulders, "It's the dialect. Just...Just stay still" "Voldemort's last revenge..." Snape trembled as the serpent nosed its way down, stark against his pale skin, dry as a scream, coiling around his... "Oh Merlin, no..." He closed his eyes, cowardly at the end, but somehow still achingly hard. But then...Oh. Oh my. "Well," Potter chuckled afterward, "Guess that sequence doesn't mean 'hate' after all." Snape and his be-spattered friend only glared. ***** April is the cruelest month ***** In chill December's grip the tinder flared, From simmering resentment leapt to flame Till January found them ill prepared Their war to make in more than just the name The FireGoddess' month raked up the coals And lit the solemn stone with passion bright Till March blew Spring across their blazing souls, Subsumed once more the fervor to the fight. For war o'ertakes the wildest of romance And Fate beshews a gallow's humor grin When duty summons one to wildest chance And hopelessness, the other fences in. And love beneath the heels of history falls For April is the cruelest month of all ***** "My lover's eyes are nothing like the sun." Sonnet 130. ***** "What are you doing?" Draco snarled, blocking the doorway. Harry didn't look up from his packing. They both knew when the time came, he would simply shoulder Draco out of his way and leave. "You can't possibly be serious!" Harry afforded him a hard glance. "Don't, Draco. You knew this was coming. I never pretended-" "But Snape?" Draco's voice cracked, "He's old, he's ugly, he's always hated you! You can't mean to leave me for- Dammit!" "I said don't!" Harry's voice yielded no more than did his eyes. A moment of breathless détente, and the Draco lunged, bore Harry back into the wall and kissed him -- hard, deeply, desperately. *I won't let go! I won't let- * A moment later, sprawled on his arse and blinking, Draco watched Harry shoulder his bag and leave. "If I wanted pretty, Malfoy," he said before the door closed, "I could have had it." ***** erotic mind control ***** He thinks of himself as a sculptor. He doesn't work in such crude medium as clay or stone, or brain or bone. No, his work is more ephemeral. His art is in the way he works his fingers deep into Potter's loathing and tickles it just so. Just so that it flinches onto territory the boy's waking mind has never imagined. Just so that when his words pour like sibilant poison into that pink- shell ear, the eyes will blaze with loathing even as the cock lurches hungrily, and the nipples pebble under his palms. Oh, but his art is in the twist of that small, sweaty body beneath him. It's in the horror/desire/guilt/passion when he mines pleasure from hatred - - beautiful, pearly soldiers from dragon's teeth strewn in tawny, sweaty soil. He knows, as he comes with a shout, that the stone despises the sculptor for setting its angel free. ***** A flying Carpet ***** "This is new." Harry dug his fingers deep into the velvety surface, pressed his cheek down and tried to maintain the smalltalk. "Doesn't..." a helpless sigh. God, that *tongue!* "doesn't quite go, does it?" The tongue stopped burrowing, and Harry nearly keened. "Oh," Snape's voice curled, "so you are the Boy Who Decorates now?" But he still knelt behind, and his interest unmistakably prodded damply up Harry's thigh. "Mm the... Boy Who... Bloody Well Screamed for it!" Harry surrendered the game at last, arching back desperately. "Please, Severus! NOW!" Snape chuckled, sat back with a grin, just as if his cock weren't purple and leaking precome in threads. "Look down, Mr. Observant." But Harry, who couldn't care less about the bet, put his quidditch muscles to work in a flying tackle. "Fuck me first," he panted, impaling himself on the struggling man, "Then I'll see how far up we are." ***** A pot to piss in ***** The wedding wasn't a white tie affair, despite the clamouring of Witch Weekly, and the Election-Year photo-seekers at the Ministry. Molly Weasley was disconsolate, but agreed that there was probably no call for new dress robes. Announcement made, guests invited, date set, Harry disappeared back into the dungeons, and his well-earned, much talked-about Hero's Due Of course gifts filled the tiny chapel, but Harry was all eyes for his matrius. And Snape was certainly dashing enough -- exchanging handfasting gifts, Severus actually smiled when Harry blinked with confusion. "A cauldron?" He asked. It was tiny -- thin, cracked at one rim, and rather rusted at the bottom. Even the witnesses muttered. It was the last thing Snape would have tolerated in his class. "No," he replied, leaning in to kiss the Hero's flawless forehead, "It's the one thing everyone said I could not give you." ***** I believe this is yours. ***** Pinned between longing, relief, and trepidation, Snape stared at the boy. Because if he looked away from those brilliantly glowing eyes, to the ebony wand in Harry's fingers, he didn't know what he would do. "Where-" he swallowed, set down the spoon and stepped away from the stove, "where did you find-" "Malfoy Manor," Harry lay Snape's wand on the counter, just by his hand. "Got through the wards today. Draco had it." The green eyes struggled with words the brat had better sense than to say, hovering warm and close, his clean, musky, soapy Harry-smell almost stronger than the steeping tea. "It's over." The boy managed at last, "You're free." To leave. To stay. To take what those eyes had mutely offered this maddening, sheltered year. Or leave a glowing ruin of shame and humiliation. Snape took a breath, took up his wand once more, and made his decision. ***** It's never too late. ***** He's dead. I know it. This is not some hysterical night terror, it is reality. I know it. Because I have known it from the moment I saw him. I knew he would die, and that is why I tried to hate him. Why I tried to trick him out of it, to defuse and sabotage that heartless, hateful destiny the world had thrust on him. I knew, and so I tried to drive him from it. I knew, and so I tried not to love him. I tried, Merlin save me, but I could not fool him. As I had known the imminent fall of his soul, it turns out he had foreseen the fall of my heart. He knew he owned me by the curl and cut of my words, by the smoke of my glare. And he came, before the end, to claim what he knew had been his all along. And now he is dead. And I am waiting only for this last cauldron to boil. ***** Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. ***** It isn't that he actually likes to cut. Because he doesn't. That would be reckless, wasteful, foolish beyond redemption. In environments as toxic as the circles in which he must move, open wounds are a vulnerability no wise man affords. It isn't even that he likes to bleed, though betimes he will admit that the release is a comfort. The sharp, bright moment easing into a silken slide of heat against his palms. Sensuality, yes, but he cannot often bring himself to be so wasteful -- a wise man hoards his resources, guards his strength. The trouble is that he cannot forget the angry heat in green eyes as the boy tore strips from his shirt without asking how, or even why. He cannot forget how those swift, strong fingers burned his skin in a trembling clench, winding the fabric slick and tight. He cannot help the coil of desire in his belly when the blood slides down, and his cock rises up, and he knows -- he knows he will hear the tap of seeking shoes outside his door. ***** 'Sins Against His Own Body' ***** "You must stop this." "You can't make me." "I can. I will. You are selfish beyond conscience, spoiled beyond redemption, and the very definition of idiocy, but you are still a student here, and I will not allow-" "Then stop me." Then a noise. It is not loud, but no one would call it soft. A desperate sound that fills the mind with pounding blood and the crash of mountains falling - - of tears and come and a million things two tongues will never say. That sound fills up the silence with intent and of all descriptions possible, one thing is sure: It is not a sound of stopping. Then comes a whisper, a final plea born out on a slender curl of fading will. "You will regret this." A rending sound. A scattering, as of coins or tiny stones. "Probably." ***** Wingardium Leviosa ***** Snape had always suspected that behind Harry Potter's heroic persona lurked the makings of an iron-cold tyrannical sadist. He'd never been fooled that the glitter in those evil green eyes was mischief -- not when they glared over potions, or clouded with lust. He'd never failed to see the twist of cruelty in those rosy, plump lips, even when they stretched wide around his cock, or glistened with the damp traces of an endless kiss. Harry Potter was a sadistic little bastard. He'd always known it. Always. And now he had proof. Though the having of it was rather embittered by a categoric inability to declaim the fact -- or, in fact, to declaim anything. Or, more to the point, to breathe at all. At last, the torture ceased, and Harry let the demonic quill drift gently down. "You should laugh more often," the sexy monster grinned, "It suits you." ***** The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast. ***** It was ludicrous, really. All of it. Snape toed the body in the mud with disgust. A half-blood standing up as Scourge of the Impure, hordes of pure- blooded elite lining up to take his brand and kiss his arse. Just beside him, would-be Lord of All, lay the Boy, pale against the blood- darkened grass, staring at the lowering heavens as though his eyes had stolen all the green. His thin chest hitched again, pushed crimson out through lips robbed of their softness by pain. No conquering hero, this. No Charlemagne, no Barbarossa. This was, if anything, the Pendragon on his dying field. Dying. Snape shook his head and knelt, curling the soft, limp form up out of its bloody cradle. Beginning the healing spells, he faltered at a touch, soft as a feather against his neck. "Why?" the Boy managed to ask. "Because," he replied, "I am no bloody Bedeviere!" Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!