Hero Worship, Part 7 of 25

[ravenna_c_tan]

All right. I'm going to post a few times a day because I do want to get this all up by Thanksgiving so folks will have a nice long fic to read during the break. :)


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Title: Hero Worship, Part 7/25
Author: Ravenna C. Tan
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Harry/Snape
Word Count: 36,901 total, 2796 this part
Disclaimer: This is non-commercial fanfiction. Trademarked characters are used for non-commercial purposes.
Beta: miraba, jordangrant
Author'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
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six



Hero Worship, Chapter Seven
Ravenna C. Tan

In the morning I am not sure whether to be livid, horrified, or mortified, especially in light of the fact that in the deepest, most Slytherin recesses of my mind (or perhaps my groin) I am plotting a way to make it happen again. Merlin help me, but I am. Knowing so does little to impede the thoughts which spring up at odd times despite my best efforts to quash them.

I go to breakfast in the Great Hall, where I eat with the few other Order members and some mediwizards who are prepping the infirmary to become a full-on medical ward for the war. Potter walks in looking a bit rumpled and the instant I see him my cock twitches as if his hand is wrapped around it from afar.

This will not do. For more reasons than I can list, this will not do at all. I take a hasty leave as he comes to the table, his eyes not on my cock but on my plate. He sees I have eaten and gives me a half-nod without meeting my eyes as I sweep up the space between the tables, away from him.

When he comes into the Room of Requirement, I have clamped down on my libido completely and there is nary a twitch or tic on my part. I have already written a new set of spells on the blackboard.

"Pulso Abscondito?" he asks, as he throws himself down on a tuffet. His hair is stuck out at all angles as usual, but as he crosses his ankles and slouches a bit I notice for the first time how little like a boy he looks. He will turn seventeen soon, I know that, but the way he carries himself is no longer like a schoolboy.

We are comrades in arms now, I remind myself, then wince inwardly at the pun. Somewhere Albus' ghost should be laughing. I forge ahead with the lesson before my mind strays any further. "You may recall being stunned by a particularly powerful blow the other night, one that did not announce itself the way Stupefy does, with a jet of bright light. If I remember the order of our duel correctly, you were attempting to use Levicorpus on me when I hit you with Pulso Abscondito."

He nods, his eyes shifting left and right as he goes over his memories of the duel, one-sided as it was.

"Loosely translated, one might call it the Hidden Hammer," I continue. "The Secret Strike."

"Which one was the one that felt like a whip across my face?" he asks, yet his voice is surprisingly void of the anger I expect.

"This one." I point to Ardeoflagello. "There is a basic Flagellum spell, and any whipping burns, but this one in particular, especially if you can catch your opponent in the eyes, can be quite debilitating." I do not tell him that if applied lightly, on the back or buttocks, that it is intensely pleasurable to some people, though the plotting part of my brain is urging me to.

"What's wrong?" he asks, frowning at me.

"Nothing."

"Your cheeks are red. Really, Snape, it's unusual for you to be more embarrassed than me about something."

"I am not embarrassed."

"But you are hiding something."

I grip my wand between my two hands and take a moment to search the ceiling. "Potter, I thought part of the whole purpose of using a guardian charm was that I could keep at least some of my thoughts to myself."

He has the nerve to laugh. "Who said that? Kingsley? No, it's that we figured no matter what we did, you were going to Occlude successfully anyway. But Argus does let me know when you're not telling me something. A very useful trick to have with children, I'd imagine."

So he wants to fight. Still. Yet he's right when he says it is unusual for me to be more embarrassed than him. I've always been able to play that card against him. "Very well, Potter. The nefarious information I am withholding from you is this. I did not originally develop Ardeoflagello for dueling purposes. I had a lover, a fellow Slytherin, and it behooved us to find a magical means of pleasure. When one is already capable of orgasm from the sensation of being whipped, the charm intensifies that experience a ten-fold. And before you think I am withholding even a scrap of information, his name was Evan Rosier, and if you must know, yes, he was a Death Eater and he is long dead."

I say this last with a vitriol that burns like acid in my chest, instantly soothed as I see I have won this round. Potter is blushing furiously and looks quite chagrined to have brought the topic up.

I let him stew in it and carry on. "You must commit these incantations to memory. I will write them each morning if you need them, and then erase them. They must never be written down anywhere."

"Because the Ministry...?"

"So that the Dark Lord will have no inkling of your abilities!" Potter's inability to focus on our single goal appalls me. "Now that he has lost me as a spy, do you not think he will try to replace me? A list of your weapons would be an asset to him indeed. He has never seen most of these hexes performed. The ability to surprise one's opponent on the battlefield is perhaps the most crucial ability you must develop. That means hiding your intent utterly by Occluding, choosing the right spells to keep him off balance, never allowing him to guess correctly what you might do next."

He nods and for some reason this angers me more. How can he be so placid? How can it be that he has mastered his anger before I have mastered mine? I force myself to take a deep breath and return to the lesson plan.

I hand him a piece of parchment and a quill, since it's clear he has none, and he transfigures a nearby tuffet into a writing desk. I choose my words carefully, reminding myself that my goal here is not to antagonize. I try to phrase it as a request, rather than a command. "I would like it if you would try to remember all the jinxes and spells you cast the other night, and in what situations. Please note which were successful and which were not. And, if you can, try to put them in chronological order. I will do the same."

I turn to look behind me--there is a decent teacher's desk, looking as if it has been there all along. I sit behind it and begin compiling my own list.

His quill is scratching for quite some time and I realize he had quite a busy night of it.

He hands me the parchment when I walk to him and hand him mine. I study it carefully.


Petrificus Totalis -- large Death Eater on Astronomy Tower, aimed at his back, successful
Petrificus again -- Fenrir, during close attack, successful
Impedimenta -- Amycus, five to ten yards, successful
Everbero -- the big blond, ten yards, successful
Impedimenta -- Alecto, at a hundred yards, successful
Stupefy -- at S.S. back, missed
Crucio -- blocked
Crucio again? -- blocked
Incarcerous -- blocked
Stupefy -- blocked
Impedimenta -- blocked
Sectumsempra -- blocked
Levicorpus -- blocked


"Mr. Potter," I say, leaning against the edge of my desk, "your memory is excellent."

He again has that look of surprised resentment that I have complimented him. "Or at least it matches yours."

"Granted." Cheeky, but correct. The paper in his hands outlines the duel from my point of view, including the Shield Charms I used.

Looking over the list, my feeling of melancholy returns. That it should have come to this, Albus' death, and so much else gone wrong... my anger is doused thoroughly. I levitate my chair next to his and sit down beside him. "I would like to go through the events of the evening, step by step, asking you questions and commenting, but before I do, there is something I need to say."

He meets my eyes.

"I appreciate that this is difficult territory for us to discuss. If at any point you feel it's... too much, all I ask is that you tell me so, and we'll stop."

"I can get through it if you can," he says, puffed up with Gryffindor bravado.

"I was going to ask the same courtesy of you," I reply evenly.

"Oh." He lets his shoulders sag. "All right then."

I remind myself that I am the master of my emotions and plunge in. "You have marked many of these as 'successful.' What is your definition of that?"

His eyes are startlingly green this close up and I wonder why I don't recall that from last night. Then I remember my eyes were shut so tightly, and the lights so dim... I tell my libido to get out of the classroom. Potter is speaking. "Well, they hit the mark. This one went down, this one, too..." He is pointing to the names on the list.

I know of no way to say this that will not sound like a criticism. "And yet they escaped. Every one. Even Fenrir. And your strike to this one barely slowed him down."

"Well, your Hammer thing didn't keep me down very long."

"Yes, but, remember, I was trying not to hurt you."

"Oh, right." He looks upward, checking his anger again. "You think I'm weak. My spells were weak."

"You did quite well for a largely untrained student..."

"I'd practiced those spells so many times Fifth Year!" He sounds angry with himself now, as if it is his own fault for not practicing hard enough.

I ignore the fact that he interrupted me. "'Dumbledore's Army,'" I say, softly.

"Yeah."

I wish we had a few cups of tea to fill the awkward silences with, and of course there is a pot just out of my line of sight, over on the large desk. I pour two cups and bring them back.

I sit again. "You practiced on your fellow students, am I right?"

"Yeah. Well, and pillows and things that the Room came up with." He glances around.

I am trying to do this gently. "You are not a weak wizard. But could your spells have been stronger? I believe so. I believe that by practicing on your fellow students you gauged the amount of power to use... a bit too low."

"You mean, I learned to pull my punches?"

"Exactly." I take a sip of tea, and he does, too, as the realization sinks in. "You already know the adage, that to cast an Unforgivable, you must truly mean it. What no one will tell you is that the same is true of all offensive spells."

"No one except you, you mean."

"Granted. This does not mean that your hexes were badly done. They worked up to a point. And we know that you have the ability to do harm..."

"We do?"

I clear my throat and take a sip of tea. "As when you slashed Malfoy."

The color which had been absent from his face for the past few minutes returns in full force. "Except that I didn't know how badly it was going to hurt him."

I had not considered that. "Perhaps you truly do pull your so-called punches then."

"Well, I really don't want to hurt people. Not really." He looks pained.

"And yet you tried to cast Sectumsempra on me, toward the end."

"When I was desperate and angry," he says, his hands balled into fists, though I don't think he realizes it.

My stomach clenches as I realize I am coming to the lesson I want to teach least. But who was going to corrupt the boy if not me? Certainly not Dumbledore. It seems too soon to have come to this topic, but I cannot let the moment pass. "As you know, your anger can be like a shield, but it can also be like a flame, easy for your opponent to see, difficult for you to control."

"I know that," he says impatiently.

"Good. A much more effective offense is cold, rather than hot. But whether you are cold or hot when you cast an Unforgivable, you must know and accept within your heart completely that what you do is evil. It is our very definition of same. To remove another person's will. To cause them unspeakable pain. To end their life. If you do not embrace the idea and accept that you are committing an act of evil, your Curses will be weak and ineffectual." I leave unspoken the rest, which is that if you do embrace it, you corrupt your soul. Forever. But let that be a lesson for another time. "Let us look at the duel."

I hold the page between us. "If you had hit me with that first Stunner, I wonder what might have happened?"

"Probably nothing," he says. "If I thought you were down for the count, I would have rushed to help Hagrid, and Kingsley still would have caught you."

"Perhaps," I say. "Or maybe when you turned away, Malfoy would have snatched my body away, or even Ennervated me. But, as you now know, it is difficult to aim downhill, especially at a moving target."

"Got it," he says, as if taking mental notes.

"Now. You went straight for the Cruciatus Curse and I blocked it."

"Flicked it aside like a minor annoyance is more like." He steals a sidelong glance at me, to see my reaction.

"Well, yes. Because not only did you telegraph the spell, you didn't quite have the necessary commitment behind it. Now, why did you switch to something as innocuous as Incarcerous next?"

He bites his lip. "I was hoping, actually, that it would be more of a diversionary tactic, that you were probably going to block the ropes but that they might have distracted you for one moment so I could get off the Stunner."

I school the surprise off my face, but I am sure he feels it just the same. Damn caretaker charm. "Impressive. And here I was preparing a lecture about the value of thinking more than one step ahead, as in a chess match. So when you tried Stupefy next, you had already planned it?"

"Um, yeah. That was as far as the plan went, though. And you blocked the Incarcerous before I even finished it. I... I didn't even realize that was possible."

I nod. It is something I will teach him later. "So then why Impedimenta next?"

"Because it had worked well that night, and I thought, well, here's one where I know I am on my game, maybe he won't be able to deflect this one so easily."

"A sound strategy, though in my case it did not work. And then you went to the non-standard spells?" The two of my own invention.

"Um, yeah. I thought maybe Sectumsempra would take you by surprise, and I was so angry I really did want to slash you to ribbons by that point, and then I tried Levicorpus because..." His voice falls silent and I see him struggling with himself over something.

"You are not the only one who can tell when someone is hiding something," I say to nudge him.

"All right! All right! I tried it because I knew that it was a spell that... m-my dad used on you, and I thought m-maybe if it worked for him, maybe it would work for me, too. But it didn't! You threw it back in my face!" He stands up and paces to the far side of the room, one fist pressed against his lips.

He stalks back, breathing hard and looking nothing like James Potter in this moment, with tears threatening to spill from his eyes.

I find I cannot look at his face. I look at his feet instead. "That was also... an admirable attempt," I manage. "In the face of imminent defeat, that type of creative thinking can truly turn the tide."

There. I have praised him at every turn. And why? Because he deserved it. I am fairly astonished. I had thought his strategy nothing more than trying hexes at random, but it would appear there is more to Potter than I thought. He still has not moved. "You are already a more sophisticated opponent than the Dark Lord will ever expect," I say. "He will underestimate you, and that will be to your advantage. But if I could defeat you, I daresay he can."

He nods, arms now hanging at his sides and... I wonder when he took his wand in hand? "I'm ready to learn whatever you have to teach me."

I take a deep breath and get to my feet, but I do not draw my wand. "I think a spot of lunch is in order first. We can try a little hands-on after that."

"Okay." He slips his wand into his robes and a half-smile curves his lips upward.

"Is something amusing?"

"Yeah." His eyes are still a bit sad, but he makes a try at lightening the mood. "That went far better than it had any right to, don't you think?"

Yes, that is exactly what I think.

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[Go on to chapter eight.]