Hero Worship, Part 22 of 25

[ravenna_c_tan]

Title: Hero Worship, Part 22/25
Author: Ravenna C. Tan
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Harry/Snape
Word Count: 36,901 total, 1939 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. Harry is 16.
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, Chapter Thirteen, Chapter Fourteen, Chapter Fifteen, Chapter Sixteen, Chapter Seventeen, Chapter Eighteen, Chapter Nineteen, Chapter Twenty, Chapter Twenty one



Hero Worship, Chapter Twenty Two
by Ravenna C. Tan


When I come to, I recognize the smell of the hospital wing before I open my eyes. I can hear Harry's voice as he argues with a mediwizard.

"Look, there's no reason to keep him sedated any longer."

"Mr. Potter, pardon me for saying so, but you are not qualified to prescribe healing techniques. He's been to the brink of death and that is not something to treat lightly."

"I'm not treating it lightly. But I need to speak to him."

"Harry," I say, and am not surprised to find my voice quite rough. "I'm awake."

I open my eyes to see him rush around the divider set between my bed and the next. He grips my hand in his.

The mediwizard rolls his eyes and shrugs before leaving. I could have told him, of course, that the bezoar that neutralized the poison would cut down the effectiveness of his sleeping draught as well. But I concentrate on Harry instead. His eyes are wet and he looks like he hasn't slept.

His words come out in a rush. "My God, Severus, I'm so... but look, what happened down there? I felt you go faint, and I just figured it must be a potions accident or something, which is why I grabbed the bezoars..." He trails off as he realizes I cannot answer his question if he is talking.

I explain it as best I can without the technicalities of potion-making that he won't understand or remember. "He accused me of sabotaging the potion, but I suppose when it became clear I knew it was he who had done so, he attacked me with a knife." I lift my right arm but there is no sign of a scar. The mediwizard is good for something after all. "The question is, why would Vance want to kill Lupin? Or me, for that matter?"

"Two questions I will find the answers to." Minerva comes around the divider in a bustle of robes and bristling indignation. "If you'd be so kind as to provide me with a few drops of Veritaserum, Severus. We've been waiting for you to come to."

I am all too happy to oblige her with the location of the unregistered bottle I have hidden in the store room. I presume she hurries off to utilize it immediately. The fewer witnesses to this non-Ministry-approved action, the better. As such, while the interrogation takes place, I am in bed in my rooms, with Harry at my side.

I am grateful for him. The bezoar neutralized the poison but could not undo what damage was already done. I am seized by shaking once or twice an hour and I can barely eat. The fits will pass once my body has dealt with the aftereffects on its own, but for the moment I am as weak and dependent as an infant.

When he strokes my hair, I feel better. He coaxes me to take a little broth and bread, and caresses my hair until I fall asleep. When I wake, wracked with trembling, he is there with soothing touches and calming words.

Sometimes the broth does not stay down. Damnable poison. My body is doing whatever it can to expel the evil substance. I am too weak to care how humiliating it should be that he must clean up after me. A few weeks ago I would have barred the door and allowed only the house elves to see me like this.

Now, because it is Harry, I do not care. "The brink of death?" I rasp at one point, wondering if that was mediwizard hyperbole or the truth.

The darkening of his eyes tells me it was the truth.

When the last vestige of the poison finally leaves me, I feel it like a weight lifting from my chest. My magic feels whole again. The room is dark but for a single spelled candle, burning on the side table.

Harry is there with me. He is curled against my back, fully-clothed but sleeping deeply atop the duvet. I do not wake him. Undoubtedly one of the effects of Argus is that he could not rest until I was safe. I shift under the blankets, throwing one edge over him and gathering him into my arms. He burrows against my chest without waking and before long I am asleep again.

When I wake next I know it is morning. The dungeon has no windows, but the years of living here have taught me to discern my internal clock. I am breathing in his scent and wondering if he will wake when his mouth seeks out mine.

The kiss is hungry, his desire going directly to my core. "Severus," he whispers, before devouring my mouth again.

I have no defenses against a desire so clear and ardent. My conflicting feelings, anger over his abandonment of me, fear of the attachment I feel for him, apprehension that at any moment he will leave again, relief that he was able to save my life as well as his own... all are obscured by his overwhelming need and the unbridled joy that surges up in me to meet him.

As he flings the bedclothes aside and slips his mouth from my face down to my neck, I want to ask, why the change of heart? But I am not a fool. I will not interrupt him. He pulls at his own robes, and I help, and in short order he pulls one blanket over us as he presses his skin against mine.

It has been a long time.

"Severus," he whispers, as he skims his erection along the cleft of my arse.

I burrow back against him. I do not deserve to feel this desired, this protected, this comforted. Not after the ways I have tormented him, the deeds I have committed. But we do things his way, his terms.

"You want me," he says into my ear, half-statement, half-question.

"Yes, yes," I say.

We roll over until he is on top of me, our two cocks rubbing against each other. He frees one arm from the blanket, Summons his wand, then the jar of Slippery Elm. He runs his slick hand over the two erections and I bite back a moan.

He repeats the question while he is teasing my anus, greasing me for his entry. "Are you sure you want me?"

"Yes," I repeat, wondering if he's forgotten.

"You aren't worried it's only Argus making us feel this way?"

I press my head back into the bed as he finds the nerves inside me that send waves of sparks to the ends of my extremities and am unable to speak for a while. When he withdraws, running his hand up and down his length and tugging on me with his other hand for good measure, I manage to say, "Are you? Worried?"

"I'm not the one who had a panic attack." He swirls the blunt head around my entrance, shifting his knees.

My heart is already beating as fast as it can go.

He speaks again. "I wouldn't want you having second thoughts."

I hook my feet behind him and try to pull him forward. "Damn. You. Potter."

"It's Harry, though, now, isn't it?" He leans forward and tries to kiss me while he continues to cocktease me. "You called me Harry when you first woke up."

So I did. "Harry, please..." I say through clenched teeth. "If it's only Argus that makes me feel this way, I promise, we shall find a way to handle that difficulty when it comes. I need y--"

He pushes through the first ring of muscle and I cling to him. It burns, but I have always enjoyed a good burn. He holds still, giving me time to adjust before he pushes further, then still further, until his balls press wetly against my backside. He seems to be trying to say something, but his body is quite preoccupied with the current activity. He backs out with a curve of his spine, then thrusts in again, his eyes fluttering closed. When he opens them on the next thrust, I can see the single candle burning in them.

"God, Severus," he manages, as he claws his way up my body to bury himself completely again. He lays his head on my chest, his lungs heaving, willing himself visibly to relax. I let my lips rest on his hair. When he has gathered himself, he looks up. "As I was saying. Or trying to. It's not Argus." He shudders then and pulls out of me completely, shaking but still managing to hold back. He gestures toward the candle since the effort of speaking is clearly too much.

I follow the line of his arm with my eyes, to the base of the candle, around which is wrapped a thin silver chain. I am still staring at it when he thrusts into me again.

His hand on my cock and his teeth nipping at the stubble on my chin regain my attention. "I want you to come," he says.

"If the charm is off, then I don't have to go first," I point out.

"Waiting for you," he says, adding a twist to his hand motion. "Don't make me wait."

"Kiss me," I say, and as soon as his tongue enters my mouth, I am coming. It feels as though each hot, hard thrust of his pushes a new spurt from me, and the sound he makes against my lips is raw and desperate, a cry I remember from the memory I have of him masturbating and imagining exactly this. He comes so hard he cries, and when he kisses me, he wets my face with his lashes.

And then we are both lying limp, and he lets himself soften slowly and slip out of me, and this time it's me cradling him and stroking his hair.

His humor returns before my anxiety. "I guess you're cured then."

"I don't recall unbridled lust being a side-effect of hellebore poisoning," I say mildly.

He rolls onto his side and tucks himself against me.

"So, when did you take the chain off?"

He pulls the blanket over us and settles his hand on my chest. "I couldn't, remember? Minerva did it when we were afraid you were going to die. We were worried that if you did, it'd kill me. So she removed it."

"Ah. Presumably that's when your fears about Argus being the source of your... attachment to me faded."

I cannot see his face, but I feel the twinge of startlement in his body. I have divined his secret. "Yeah," he admits. "And when I realized that if I lost you... that I'd have really lost something if you died." He clutches me a bit tighter.

"So was that your hidden worry? That it was the spell somehow making us act in a way we would regret?"

He snorts. "Oh yes. And other ridiculous crap, like worrying that you might turn me gay the way Rosier did you."

I start to sit up. "Evan Rosier did not 'make me gay'..."

"Hush, I know. I had a lot of ludicrous thoughts like that, though, but they were pretty much all reduced to nothing while you were lying there dying. I had a lot of time to think."

"How long?"

"Three days. I had a lot of heart-to-hearts with myself, with you, with Minerva even, during that time." He yawns. "Now, should we get out of bed or go back to sleep?"

"I, for one, would like to hear the results of Vance's interrogation."

"Yeah, that would be worth getting out of bed for." And before I know it, he is up and crossing the room.

I follow, a bit more slowly. I suppose that for now, there is nothing more to say about what has happened between us.

--

[Go on to chapter twenty-three.]