Hero Worship, Part 4 of 25
Nov. 13th, 2006 03:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenna_c_tanTitle: Hero Worship, Part 4/25
Author: Ravenna C. Tan
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Harry/Snape
Word Count: 36,901 total, 1204 this part
Disclaimer: This is non-commercial fanfiction. Trademarked characters are used for non-commercial purposes.
Beta:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
miraba, jordangrant
Author's Note: A gift forregan_v, as a request she made about submissive!snape brought this on.
Warnings: A touch of BDSM/power exchange sex.
Archive: Part of the From Dusk till Dawn Severus Snape/Harry Potter Fuh-Q-Fest at http://www.kardasi.com/HPSS/storyindex.htm (The Fest was due to begin Nov. 10th--now pushed back 1 month, but authors may post in their own journals).
Challenge/Summary: "What if...?" What if Snape did not escape at the end of Half-Blood Prince? What if Kingsley Shacklebolt caught him before he could Apparate away? Not trusted by the Order, but still determined to bring down Voldemort, Snape agrees to undergo an unusual spell.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Hero Worship, Chapter Four
Ravenna C. Tan
The next morning we convene at the Room of Requirement, which is a much more sensible place than either a classroom or office if I am to teach him to duel. I step through the door to find him already there, the remnants of a feather pillow scattered across half the room. He reddens as my gaze slides from the obliterated target to his face. I do not even have to say anything--he knows full well that he is engaging in the very behavior that he ordered me to refrain from last night, the little hypocrite.
He has circles under his eyes to match mine. It would appear neither of us slept well last night. At least he is decently robed, today, his Muggle clothes hidden under one of his school robes.
No, not a school robe--it is missing its house crest. I file that detail away and turn to the convenient blackboard along one wall. As I begin to write, I hear the mess behind me being Scourgified.
"Try it non-verbally," I say automatically, as I continue to jot on the board.
He goes silent without argument and I count my blessings. When I turn around, he is seated on a tuffet, his ankles crossed in front of him and his elbow on one knee. I indicate the list behind me.
"These are all spells with which I believe you are familiar," I say, "despite the substandard instructors you have suffered in Defense."
God, he wants to argue every point. I can see it in his eyes. "Remus did all right."
"Hmm, one out of how many incompetents? Umbridge's useless reading course? Lockhart's preening sessions? I did as much as I could to reverse the damage last term, and we are fortunate that your aptitude in this area makes up for much of the rest."
"I didn't demonstrate much aptitude the other night." I can see him swallowing hard, as if he's swallowing the urge to scream at me.
"I remember." He'd tried to use Cruciatus on me, but never got past the first syllable. "May we count it as another incredible stroke of luck on your part that the wizard you dueled that night had no genuine wish to harm you?"
He recalls the depths to which he sank when I held him wandless and helpless in the mud. Reddening further, he mumbles, "I told you to kill me, didn't I."
Albus, Albus, you've placed all our Fates in the hands of this boy... I take what will not be my only calming breath of the day. The gap between us is large enough that I sit on the tuffet next to him as a symbolic gesture. He looks up at me. "Yes, you did. We shall take that as evidence that you were not at your best at the time."
He lets out a bark of bitter laughter.
"Let us consider the entire scene on the hillside last week as one tremendous... learning experience." I can see why he's laughing--the words sound ludicrous to me, as well. But I forge ahead. "When you face the Dark Lord, you will likely be in some measure of emotional distress, with no time to compose your thoughts or feelings. You wanted to kill me the other night, but that burning desire was not enough to give you the means to do so. What will you do if next time it is Miss Granger or Mr. Weasley who is killed before your very eyes?"
His face is suffused with pain and determination as he stares into his own vision of what that final, hellish confrontation might be like.
"Look at me, Potter." His eyes snap up. "I have one goal in life and one goal only, and that is to see that the Dark Lord is defeated. You are the instrument through which this will happen. When you can beat me in a duel, I will be satisfied that you are ready to make the attempt. Did you enjoy feeling helpless as I flicked aside your attacks?"
"No!" His anger comes to the surface.
"Do as I say and you will never have to live through that again." Merlin, it's hard not to just crush him with belittling comments, but to do so would not only be counterproductive, it would merely be a cover for my own fear that we have so far to go. Until he can Occlude properly, even his strongest, surest hexes will be swatted aside.
His eyes are on the list of spells. I see his surprise that I have included Sectumsempra.
"You may note that some of these are not Ministry-approved."
A hint of smirk tugs at his cheek.
"And there are others I will teach you, if you will deign not to mention them to Rufus Scrimgeour."
Suddenly he is standing up, stammering. "That reminds me. Um, hang on a second."
My mouth opens to rebuke him for interrupting the lesson, but I do not get far. He opens a cabinet in the corner of the room and pulls out a book. I recognize it before he even turns toward me.
"So that is where you hid it," I say, on my feet before I can stop myself.
"What did you expect?" he answers, defiant. "That I was just going to do as you said? What would you have done if I'd brought you the book?"
"Confiscation was my goal," I say with a calm I do not feel. "After all, it is mine." We sound like some twisted version of siblings, fighting over a favorite toy.
I turn away from him to stare at the blackboard. "There are those not in that book." I shudder to think what havoc he might have wrought with my NEWT-level text, before I remember I burned it, on Albus' advice, long ago. The margins of that book were annotated with even worse spells than what I'd written in my 6th year book. I forge ahead with my planned lecture for the day. "Sectumsempra is perhaps the worst of the ones you have found, but there are far worse."
"Worse than Avada Kedavra?"
I whirl and face him. I should be cold. I should use my icy, belittling voice. But I can hear the insinuation in his, the fact that he wants to remind me, every chance he gets, that I killed Albus. So I am hot, my anger untrammeled. "Do you plan to kill every Death Eater you meet?" I take a step toward him. "Do you think you can? Did you know that you cannot use Avada Kedavra on two attackers at once? Do you believe that you can merely leave a trail of corpses behind you until at last you face the Dark Lord entirely alone?"
How and when exactly I closed the distance between us and gripped him by the chin, I do not know. I push him away, more disgusted with myself for my appalling lack of control than with his juvenile taunts.
I am shaking and just barely restraining myself from storming out of the room. Then it turns out I don't have to. My eyes are closed but I hear something thump on the floor, and then the soft shuffle of his shoes. The door opens and closes.
He is gone. I open my eyes to see the book sitting at my feet. A peace offering?
I am in no mood for peace. I destroy the book with a well-placed hex, and then turn to the pillows with more hexes rising on my lips.
This time he does not stop me.
--
[On to chapter five.]
Author: Ravenna C. Tan
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Harry/Snape
Word Count: 36,901 total, 1204 this part
Disclaimer: This is non-commercial fanfiction. Trademarked characters are used for non-commercial purposes.
Beta:
miraba, jordangrantAuthor's Note: A gift for
regan_v, as a request she made about submissive!snape brought this on.Warnings: A touch of BDSM/power exchange sex.
Archive: Part of the From Dusk till Dawn Severus Snape/Harry Potter Fuh-Q-Fest at http://www.kardasi.com/HPSS/storyindex.htm (The Fest was due to begin Nov. 10th--now pushed back 1 month, but authors may post in their own journals).
Challenge/Summary: "What if...?" What if Snape did not escape at the end of Half-Blood Prince? What if Kingsley Shacklebolt caught him before he could Apparate away? Not trusted by the Order, but still determined to bring down Voldemort, Snape agrees to undergo an unusual spell.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Hero Worship, Chapter Four
Ravenna C. Tan
The next morning we convene at the Room of Requirement, which is a much more sensible place than either a classroom or office if I am to teach him to duel. I step through the door to find him already there, the remnants of a feather pillow scattered across half the room. He reddens as my gaze slides from the obliterated target to his face. I do not even have to say anything--he knows full well that he is engaging in the very behavior that he ordered me to refrain from last night, the little hypocrite.
He has circles under his eyes to match mine. It would appear neither of us slept well last night. At least he is decently robed, today, his Muggle clothes hidden under one of his school robes.
No, not a school robe--it is missing its house crest. I file that detail away and turn to the convenient blackboard along one wall. As I begin to write, I hear the mess behind me being Scourgified.
"Try it non-verbally," I say automatically, as I continue to jot on the board.
He goes silent without argument and I count my blessings. When I turn around, he is seated on a tuffet, his ankles crossed in front of him and his elbow on one knee. I indicate the list behind me.
"These are all spells with which I believe you are familiar," I say, "despite the substandard instructors you have suffered in Defense."
God, he wants to argue every point. I can see it in his eyes. "Remus did all right."
"Hmm, one out of how many incompetents? Umbridge's useless reading course? Lockhart's preening sessions? I did as much as I could to reverse the damage last term, and we are fortunate that your aptitude in this area makes up for much of the rest."
"I didn't demonstrate much aptitude the other night." I can see him swallowing hard, as if he's swallowing the urge to scream at me.
"I remember." He'd tried to use Cruciatus on me, but never got past the first syllable. "May we count it as another incredible stroke of luck on your part that the wizard you dueled that night had no genuine wish to harm you?"
He recalls the depths to which he sank when I held him wandless and helpless in the mud. Reddening further, he mumbles, "I told you to kill me, didn't I."
Albus, Albus, you've placed all our Fates in the hands of this boy... I take what will not be my only calming breath of the day. The gap between us is large enough that I sit on the tuffet next to him as a symbolic gesture. He looks up at me. "Yes, you did. We shall take that as evidence that you were not at your best at the time."
He lets out a bark of bitter laughter.
"Let us consider the entire scene on the hillside last week as one tremendous... learning experience." I can see why he's laughing--the words sound ludicrous to me, as well. But I forge ahead. "When you face the Dark Lord, you will likely be in some measure of emotional distress, with no time to compose your thoughts or feelings. You wanted to kill me the other night, but that burning desire was not enough to give you the means to do so. What will you do if next time it is Miss Granger or Mr. Weasley who is killed before your very eyes?"
His face is suffused with pain and determination as he stares into his own vision of what that final, hellish confrontation might be like.
"Look at me, Potter." His eyes snap up. "I have one goal in life and one goal only, and that is to see that the Dark Lord is defeated. You are the instrument through which this will happen. When you can beat me in a duel, I will be satisfied that you are ready to make the attempt. Did you enjoy feeling helpless as I flicked aside your attacks?"
"No!" His anger comes to the surface.
"Do as I say and you will never have to live through that again." Merlin, it's hard not to just crush him with belittling comments, but to do so would not only be counterproductive, it would merely be a cover for my own fear that we have so far to go. Until he can Occlude properly, even his strongest, surest hexes will be swatted aside.
His eyes are on the list of spells. I see his surprise that I have included Sectumsempra.
"You may note that some of these are not Ministry-approved."
A hint of smirk tugs at his cheek.
"And there are others I will teach you, if you will deign not to mention them to Rufus Scrimgeour."
Suddenly he is standing up, stammering. "That reminds me. Um, hang on a second."
My mouth opens to rebuke him for interrupting the lesson, but I do not get far. He opens a cabinet in the corner of the room and pulls out a book. I recognize it before he even turns toward me.
"So that is where you hid it," I say, on my feet before I can stop myself.
"What did you expect?" he answers, defiant. "That I was just going to do as you said? What would you have done if I'd brought you the book?"
"Confiscation was my goal," I say with a calm I do not feel. "After all, it is mine." We sound like some twisted version of siblings, fighting over a favorite toy.
I turn away from him to stare at the blackboard. "There are those not in that book." I shudder to think what havoc he might have wrought with my NEWT-level text, before I remember I burned it, on Albus' advice, long ago. The margins of that book were annotated with even worse spells than what I'd written in my 6th year book. I forge ahead with my planned lecture for the day. "Sectumsempra is perhaps the worst of the ones you have found, but there are far worse."
"Worse than Avada Kedavra?"
I whirl and face him. I should be cold. I should use my icy, belittling voice. But I can hear the insinuation in his, the fact that he wants to remind me, every chance he gets, that I killed Albus. So I am hot, my anger untrammeled. "Do you plan to kill every Death Eater you meet?" I take a step toward him. "Do you think you can? Did you know that you cannot use Avada Kedavra on two attackers at once? Do you believe that you can merely leave a trail of corpses behind you until at last you face the Dark Lord entirely alone?"
How and when exactly I closed the distance between us and gripped him by the chin, I do not know. I push him away, more disgusted with myself for my appalling lack of control than with his juvenile taunts.
I am shaking and just barely restraining myself from storming out of the room. Then it turns out I don't have to. My eyes are closed but I hear something thump on the floor, and then the soft shuffle of his shoes. The door opens and closes.
He is gone. I open my eyes to see the book sitting at my feet. A peace offering?
I am in no mood for peace. I destroy the book with a well-placed hex, and then turn to the pillows with more hexes rising on my lips.
This time he does not stop me.
--
[On to chapter five.]
