Hero Worship, Part 13 of 25

[ravenna_c_tan]

Title: Hero Worship, Part 13/25
Author: Ravenna C. Tan
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Harry/Snape
Word Count: 36,901 total, 1516 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, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten, Chapter Eleven, Chapter Twelve



Hero Worship, Chapter Thirteen
Ravenna C. Tan

It is not until the middle of the night that I wake up wondering what in hell's name I've done. I've agreed to subsume my own will to a bratty teenager's because he had the good grace to get me off?

No, be precise. He is not bratty. Draco Malfoy is bratty, or was. I wonder for a moment how the Malfoy heir is faring, if he's in the clutches of the Death Eaters, or if he's even still alive. And Potter, well, it's clear that recent experiences have aged Potter. He is still raw, but he is not the sullen layabout I used to loathe. And he is mere weeks from being of age.

And much as I would like to deny it, Argus is too powerful a spell to ignore. Years of celibacy, of it being too dangerous to let another person that close to my body or my mind, had convinced me I did not need sexual release nor intimacy. I am intensely uncomfortable to find that supposition shattered. Yet I could do worse for a caretaker than Potter. He will be discreet, of that I am sure, as he has as much to hide as I do. And he is aesthetically suitable. He doesn't like me much, but Argus gives him no choice about that.

My bedroom is quiet in the way only a dungeon room can be, the air perfectly still. I lie on my back, awake and thinking. The image is bright in my mind, Moody and I both with wands drawn. Moody has always been a crazy, loose cannon and as much a danger to us as to the enemy.

But me? It pains me to think that the others see me in the same light. That is not who I am.

I remember something Evan taught me, so long ago. Discipline, he told me, is only necessary for those without self-discipline. My self-discipline flew off the top of the Astronomy Tower, though. Potter will be my discipline now.

Part of me expects him to fail at it. But that is not my concern. Not yet. That is a different bridge to cross. For now I have put my feet on a path and I shall not be the one who falters. If he finds me so distasteful that he must flee after performing his duty, that is his affair.

Again the thought nags me that there must be someone he goes to, someone he desires, but I remind myself that is not my concern. I sleep well after that.

We meet at the Room of Requirement at the appointed time. He looks remarkably better and I am not so smitten as to think that it is my perception that has changed. The circles under his eyes are gone and his skin seems less waxy. The irony of the situation makes me chuckle. He is the guardian, but I am the one who must eat, and sleep, and wank, or he will waste away. But of course, mutual dependence was the goal of the spell, and that it has achieved.

"Pick up your wand. I would like you to begin with a recitation of the spells and what they do," I say, my hands folded behind my back.

He is seated at a writing desk in front of me. He picks up the wand and then hesitates. "Um, but you haven't told me what they all do."

"Correct. In fact, I have explained none of them. But I would like to hear your... best guess." I am staring into his eyes as I say this. Think, Potter. Why would I tell you to pick up your wand if all you are going to do is talk? For a moment, I think he is going to disappoint me, crumble like he used to in class, when he could look to his friends for sympathy. Then I feel the push of him at my mind. I let his hand reach into the cookie jar before I slide the lid shut.

"Eruptonis Sanguis," he begins. "Makes their blood fountain out through their mouth."

"And other places, if cast with enough force. Very good. Proceed."

He does, getting through half a dozen before he falters and falls silent.

"Very good," I say, and then realize he is waiting for a rebuke. "Mr. Potter. When I set you up to fail, you will know it."

He blinks. "Is that what you've...?"

"Yes. I have quite enjoyed watching you struggle through my classes all these years, as I have set one obstacle after another in your path." I examine my fingernails. "That tactic seems counterproductive to our current situation, however, and I do have other methods."

He stifles the flicker of outrage on his face, and opens his mouth to say something, but I speak first. "Now tell me, what did you just do to suppress your anger?"

His eyes search the top of his desk. "I sort of, um, I don't know."

"But you did it. You pushed it aside. You buried it. You hid it."

"Well, yes." He is frowning not in annoyance but with the effort of trying to understand.

"When you Occlude, you will bury your thoughts the same way. Only you will use your magic to do it, your entire will."

I see his eyes widen as this idea sinks in.

Then there is a knock on the door. I go to open it, and there is a house elf with a scroll. I take the scroll and the elf scurries away.

"It's from Minerva," I say, my heart sinking. "She requests to see both of us after lunch in her office."

Potter chuckles.

"What's so funny?"

"You," he answers, crossing his ankles under the desk and smiling. "You sound like she's going to give you detention or something."

I tug on the chain. "She already did, remember?"

"Was she teaching here when you were a student?"

I nod. "Though I never had detention with her. Stop laughing at me!"

But he can't. He wipes his face as if he can physically take the smile away, but he can't. "You think you're in trouble, though."

"My behavior at yesterday's meeting was appalling." But that doesn't mean I wish to face censure over it.

"I'll speak to her first," he says then, and I am reminded of the authority I heard in his voice when he addressed the group yesterday. The Order of the Phoenix has no ranks, but this young soldier is already a trusted lieutenant. And he's The Boy Who Lived. Of course they listen to him, something he is only now learning to exploit.

This reminds me of something I've been meaning to ask him. "You called me by my given name, yesterday."

He tenses. "In the meeting. Yeah."

"Why?"

"Haven't you noticed? If someone likes someone in the Order they'll call them by first name. 'That's a grand idea, Harry.' 'What do you think, Arthur?' And if I called you 'Snape,' well, it was going to come across like I didn't like you, and then the others would feel it was okay not to like you as well."

I sit in a chair a few feet from him. "I thought none of you liked me."

"Well, that's true. But we're not going to get anywhere that way." He blushes. "I dunno, Snape. Did you ever consider that maybe I felt bad about wanting to kill you?"

"Why would you regret that? I killed your mentor, tormented you, and seemingly betrayed you. I expected you to feel that way."

"Yeah, but..."

"But you feel guilty. Did you consider that may be an effect of Argus?" I am not looking at him when I say this. "Or maybe it's just your oversized Gryffindor sense of honor?"

"Yeah, well. I feel sorry about it, and I want them to feel sorry, too."

Now that is interesting. "Why do you care how they feel?" We've now strayed quite far from the lesson plan, but this is valuable information for me.

"I don't know." He is looking at the bookshelf now, but not really seeing it. "I guess I feel better when everyone agrees with me. Like I've made the right choice."

"And when they don't agree with you? Do you change what you think?"

"No." He laughs at himself. "That's the story of my life."

I sit silent, waiting for him to go on.

"I mean, no one believed me when I said I could hear a voice in the walls, and it turned out there was a basilisk on the loose. No one would listen to me when I said Malfoy was up to something, either, told me I was obsessed, like I was the one who was nuts. And of course he was trying to let the Death Eaters in the whole time."

"No one, not even your friends, Weasley and Granger?"

"They were the ones who told me I was obsessed."

I watch him look at his own hands. So it seems I am not the only one who has consistently underestimated, belittled, and disbelieved the boy. (Not a boy, anymore, though, I remind myself.) Was Albus the only one who saw and believed?

His voice breaks my reverie. "You're thinking about him. Dumbledore."

"The spell tells you this?"

"Sort of. You get a certain look on your face. And I can feel your... your regret. I put two and two together."

"Indeed." We each sit a while with our thoughts before we go back to the day's lesson. I put Minerva McGonagall out of my mind and concentrate on the task at hand.


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[Go on to chapter fourteen.]