Chasing Moonbeams. Ch2.
Jul. 24th, 2019 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pekelekeTitle: Chasing Moonbeams.
Author: pekeleke
Pairing(s): Severus Snape/Harry Potter
Rating: NC-17, eventually.
Length: 82K+
Warnings: Extremely Slow burn. Pre-slash to slash. Enemies to friends to lovers. Pinning!Harry. Oblivious!Severus. Implied Bottom!Severus. EWE.
Disclaimer: Don't own these characters. I make no profit from writing fanfiction.
Summary: “Really?” Harry beams, green eyes wide and full of wonder. “You’re going to let me snog you to my heart’s content?”
“Of course not.” Severus replies contrarily, curling elegant digits around the brat’s neck and tugging him down low enough for a quick and dirty kiss before the Savior has a chance to protest. “I’m going to let you snog me to my heart’s content, Potter.”
Chapter 2
The next four days are gloriously Potter-free, which doesn’t excuse the ridiculous decision on Severus’s part that leads directly to his second, third, and every other encounter with The Strangeness. Severus is an idiot. He knows this about his own nature already and generally despises any outsiders who attempt to drive the point home unless they’d been invited to do so by him over a bottle of Firewhiskey, which pretty much means the only person allowed to call him an idiot to his face is Minerva McGonagall.
The biggest culprit for Severus’s idiocy is that awful weakness that sometimes overcomes him when it comes to a few -very few indeed- others. Severus knows himself to be something of a cold fish. He enjoys being a cold fish. It keeps his emotions tangle and hurt-free, which is a blessing when you’re in possession of a heart as dumb and unlucky as his.
However, now and then he encounters an individual he can’t be cold towards, a person that moves him, someone who matters to him so much that they acquire the power to unleash his weakness. Severus would do anything for every one of those individuals, few as they are. He’d go to any lengths to help them, to protect them and ensure their happiness and well-being, even if they never return the favor or bring themselves to regard him with equal depth of feeling. That is the shameful nature of Severus’s idiocy and, since he’s learned the hard way that there is no cure for the bloody thing, he bears the weight of its unreasonable demands if not gracefully, at least pragmatically.
Severus doesn’t usually like children. Finds most of them utterly repellent little pests he strives to avoid at all costs. However, every decade or so a little tyke comes along, catches his eye, and earns enough of his begrudging respect to turn him into putty. These days, Severus happens to enjoy the company of skinny little Nathaniel Nothbury. The boy is bright and shy; kinder than he ought to be, too adventurous for his own good, and an absolute menace with a slingshot and one of those Wheezes Glitter Them All pellets.
Severus is in his front garden, admiring the new height of his much lusher hedge and basking in the weak heat of the sunny early spring morning when he hears the first signs of a growing commotion outside his cottage. Severus’s property is located at the very end of his street and backs directly into a small woodland so overrun with Trooping Fairies that not even earnest mushroom hunters approach it anymore. Nobody comes this far down the lane unless they’re coming to visit him. Potter is the only person who roams about regularly due to his patrolling, but Potter’s already come and gone this morning, and Severus doesn’t expect him back until early evening. He’s already half decided that if whoever is out there is dumb enough to try their luck with the fairies then they’re welcome to whatever miserable fate awaits them when the high-pitched cry of a small child in pain reaches his ears. The fact that he recognizes the timbre of little Nathaniel Nothbury’s voice at once has him Apparating outside with his next blink.
Severus materializes directly into chaos. Fairies. There are fairies everywhere. Also, these are very pissed off, very Wheezes Glitter Them All covered fairies who seem understandably determined to punish the very obvious, very frightened, mischievous architect of their current sparkly orange complexion. Severus doesn’t like fairies. They’re obnoxious, malicious little buggers who find joy in humiliating the weak and causing harm to the naive. He especially dislikes fairies who thoughtlessly hurt children. The fact that the endangered child in question happens to be one of the very few people who has managed to unleash Severus’s pesky weakness means he’s got no option but to commit to getting himself soundly trashed by a furious mob of glittering orange fairies just to save the little brat’s neck.
“What is going on here?” Severus thunders with as much displeasure as he can muster, which is plenty since he’s rather busy adding a painful reacquainting with a dose of Skele-Gro to his evening plans.
The fairies’s angry fluttering slows down ominously. They seem understandably shocked that a human has dared to interrupt their bullish heckling, and Severus tries his best not to show fear when their collectively malevolent gaze settles upon him. “We owe you no explanation, wizard.”
“I think you do.” Severus tells their belligerent leader calmly, “I live in this cottage here, and you’re ruining my peaceful morning with your screaming. If I, as a wizard, must abide by your desire that I respect the tranquility of your woodland lair or face the consequences, it’s only fair you do the same when you’re, literally, in my doorstep.”
“The wizardling hexed us. He must be punished.”
“The wizardling isn’t old enough to know any hexes. He doesn’t have enough magical power to cast one, either. I should know. I was a professor at Hogwarts for sixteen years.”
The leader’s temper begins to fray. Fairies have no care for patience. “How is it we look like this, then? We’ve turned orange. We shine. He’s done something to us, wizard!”
“He was playing with a toy that bathes everything it touches in colored glitter. He must have set it off near your nest accidentally. He’s little, and your skills at blending large nests into their woodland surroundings are unparalleled. If a fully trained wizard can’t spot one, what are the chances that a child playing with a favorite toy would?”
“He disturbed us. He painted us with his disgusting toy. He must pay.”
Severus takes one look at the apoplectic face of the fairy leader and edges closer to Nathaniel. Reasoning with spiteful feral creatures rarely works, but he had to give it a try, “If you plan to harm this lad you’ll have to go through me.”
“You think we won’t, wizard? You think we fear you?” The fairy leader sneers, tiny face alive with a gleeful viciousness that instantly sparks a frenzied hunger for bloody retribution across the ranks of his cohorts.
Severus doesn’t answer. He doesn’t wait for the little beasts to make the first move in their upcoming tussle either. He Stuns the lot of them with his next breath and immediately layers the strongest Immobulus and Incarcerous he can produce atop the Stunner. Severus is aware that casting over so many targets at once has weakened his spell-work. He’s also conscious that the fairies’ magic is stronger than his. The nasty buggers won’t be down for long. Also, they’ll be livid when they come to, but this respite is all he wants. It’s the only chance he’ll get to give the one instruction that’ll make the brutal beating he’s about to endure worth it. He kneels in front of Nathaniel, brings the boy to his feet as calmly as he can and orders: “Run, Nathaniel. Do you understand me? You’ve got to run home as fast as you can and hide. Make sure you close the door behind you. Tell your grandma to put her wards up, and don’t leave the place until tomorrow morning.”
The boy looks at him with wide, terrified eyes and, to his credit, opens his mouth to protest some point or other of Severus’s hastily hatched plan. Severus has no time to indulge him. He can feel how fast his spell-work is unraveling. If Nathaniel doesn’t leave this instant, he won’t make it home at all. “Don’t argue with me, brat. I’m not in the mood for your nonsense. Go. Right now. GO!”
Nathaniel whimpers with fright and launches himself up the lane in instinctive response to Severus’s displeased roar. He’s dammed fast on his feet and, as his tiny frame finally turns the corner and ventures out of sight, Severus sincerely hopes the boy also proves to be a sensible little soldier. He needs Nathaniel to obey. That’s the only thing that’ll keep him safe now.
“YOU DARE HARM US, WIZARD?” The fairy leader bellows as Severus turns to face him, shaking off the weakening remains of the spells that were keeping him at bay. Severus eyes the straightening figures that have begun to surround him and wishes that the simple act of Apparating away from them, or Depulso-ing the lot to the dirtiest pit of hell, worked against fairies. It doesn’t. The nasty buggers are impervious to displacement magic and make anyone within their sight impervious to it too. Severus’s only recourse to safety lies in his ability to duck their hexes long enough to dive past the protection of the wards surrounding his cottage, but there’s currently a damned wall of considerably pissed off Fae fluttering between himself and his overly lush hedge.
Like elf magic, fairy magic is instinctual, rather potent, and next to impossible to counter. Severus feels the very air shake with gathering power as his opponents fly closer. He growls loudly and feints a step forward only to cast a non-verbal Disillusionment Charm over himself and swing left instead. The fairies howl in outrage; their power-drawing falters as they buzz around with ever louder agitation trying to pinpoint his location. Severus knows the distraction won’t last. Fairies can sense human magic if they put their minds to it, but they’re very slow at it.
Despite the increasingly angry disarray with which they’re flying, the fairies stubbornly guard the entrance to his house, so Severus’s hope of using his little trick to make a run for his front door dies a rather swift death. He still darts past the zipping winged beasts in that direction, because he’s got nothing to lose, and every step Severus takes towards the safety of his wards now is one less he’ll have to plan for when the shit hits the fan. He’s about two meters away from the edge of his wards when his luck finally runs out. He’s just dodged an increasingly peeved quartet and, in his rush to move forward, misses the straggler that follows them. An unusually fat brown Fae crashes against his bony shoulder and lets out a loud wail, the whiny pest. Its comrades whirl around with horrifyingly efficient synchronicity and clap their tiny hands once in Severus’s direction. He tries to duck, but they are herding him away from his cottage, and he knows he can’t afford to lose ground now. He grits his teeth and stays put, hoping they’re not hitting him with their magical specialty so early on. If they’ve cast the Fae’s Bone Crusher as one, he is, literally, done for.
They'd cast the Blood Boiling Hex instead, and Severus can’t contain his first shocked scream or his second. It’s been a long time since he last was on the receiving end of such a vicious attack. The fluid running through his veins is super-heating, burning him from the inside-out as his blood is forced to bubble. Soon he’ll start bleeding from his nose. His ears and the sides of his eyes will follow swiftly, and then there will be a small window of agony before his body explodes into the sort of smithereens that fall on the ground with a splat. There’s no counter for the Blood Boiling Hex, and through the pain that has already brought him to his knees, Severus realizes he has about six seconds to force the casters' focus away from the hex they’re maintaining, or he’s dead. His growing anger, and the need to retaliate in such horrible way that his attackers will be forced to stop in their tracks, lead him to cast Diffindo. That is a truly terrible curse to use against winged creatures because the Severing Charm is designed to seek seams, so it always cuts vulnerable appendages first. Severus’s left ear is gushing a worrying amount of blood down his neck when the first scream rents the air. He’s cast blindly, desperately, furiously. He’s not certain how wide the arch of his charm’s reach is, but it severs the wings of however many fairies are fluttering within it in one fell swoop.
Abject panic runs through the Fae as soon as their comrades start to fall. Severus hears their terrified wails, and the dull ‘plop,’ ‘plop,’ ‘plop’ of about a dozen tiny bodies hitting the ground, through the ever-thickening fog weakening his focus. He’s lost too much blood. His magic is strained from casting over so many targets at once. He needs to find shelter.
He stumbles back onto his feet while his enemies swarm around their fallen allies, takes a wavering step towards his home, and promptly hits the ground again when a Pummeling Hex lands on his back. The first magical punch takes his breath away, and the second cracks his ribs. His hastily conjured shield takes care of the third punch, and the next five or six, but shatters under the force of an enraged Lancing Maxima. The hex impales him to the ground. Pins him there like a butterfly to a wooden board and forces him to curl around his right thigh in agony. Severus pants through the pain and twists around to face them, thanking Salazar their aim hadn’t been better.
His Diffindo has caused some damage. There are wriggling, glitter-covered bodies scattered all over the ground and a small pile of torn gossamer-thin wings wilt under the combined weight of freshly spilled blood and dust from the road. The fairy leader’s face is more than livid. It positively radiates despairing anguish, and Severus realizes with very little satisfaction that he’s probably left one of the beast’s beloved wingless. “You. Are. Going. To. Die, Wizard.”
Severus takes a panting breath and smirks for all he’s worth. He can imagine the picture he makes, all bloodied gums, grimy features and the unhinged you-are-messing-with-a-Sadistic-Death-Eater-here glimmer in his eyes he hasn’t sported since the end of the war. Some fairies gasp in fright and back away, but their leader is beyond common sense. He’s got the advantage too, so Severus can’t fault his refusal to retreat. He’d do the same in the pest’s place.
The fairy makes a show of bringing his hands together, readying for a casting clap but, before he can complete the motion, Severus raises his wand and layers a Lumos Maxima over an Engorgio and Venomous Serpensortia combination. The sight of a magically enhanced Inland Taipan lunging ferociously at him pushes the fairy leader backward with a shocked wail merely a second before the Lumos unleashes blinding hell upon them. Severus, aware the bright light was coming, had lowered his gaze at the right time, earning himself approximately thirty seconds of grace, which he uses to shrink the lance pinning his leg to the floor for the time being, cast another hurried Disillusionment Charm upon himself and push his rapidly weakening, aching body into an awkward roll towards his cottage.
The howl of outrage the fairy leader lets out when he finally manages to shake off the blinding effects of the Lumos makes Severus’s still overly warm blood freeze in his veins. He knows the beast can’t pinpoint his exact location yet, but that doesn’t seem to deter its anger. The creature casts blindly, clapping again and again with such ferocity that chunks of cobblestone crash left and right as they’re violently upended from the ground upon which they lay. Severus tries to roll homeward faster, but his ribs are toast, his back bruised to high heaven, his right leg fucked half to hell and, to top it all off, he’s probably going into shock from blood loss.
One of the fairy’s stray curses catches his left foot. It’s a bloody Fae’s Bone Crusher, and every bone below his ankle pulses twice as the spell takes hold and shatters all at once. Severus screams his throat raw, giving his position away. The pain is so severe that his Disillusionment Charm drops, and he can’t even bring himself to cast a non-verbal shield with what’s left of his breath. Another Bone Crusher takes hold of his wand arm, destroying the limb from the shoulder down, and Severus forces himself onto his back as his no longer stiff fingers lose their grip on his wand. He’s going to die, right here, right now, and he’d been so bloody close to safety. That final blow struck him down about a foot and a half, maybe two, from the edge of his wards but the shelter they offer is as unreachable to Severus as the fucking shores of France right now. Unless he— yes. He supposes he can try to spin one last trick. One last desperate Slytherin gamble. He’s got nothing to lose after all.
Severus takes a deep breath and looks up, straight into the eyes of the tiny dot of malevolent energy that’s bested him so soundly, and spits a massive gob of blood and saliva that lands squarely on the fairy’s glittery orange face. The Fae shrieks in outraged disgust and blasts the hell out of Severus with an instinctive Flipendo. Severus grits his teeth, taking a Knock Back Jinx to the solar plexus is rather unpleasant, and he’s already got a set of broken ribs to worry about, but he forces himself to relax into the hit. It’s bound to carry him back a bit further that way. The force of the Jinx lifts him a couple of inches into the air as it pushes him away with brutal swiftness.
Severus feels the moment the wards of his front garden cut the spell’s power off. His backward momentum halts so abruptly that his neck suffers instant whiplash as he drops to the ground. He’s not too bothered by the violent landing, in all honesty. He made it. He can’t believe that worked. He’s always had a knack for driving his enemies into frothing rage and, this time, he’d pushed that brainless fairy into jinxing him directly inside the safety zone that his front garden’s wards provide. They’re state of the art too. “The beasts can’t touch me now. Nothing can.” He crows and starts to laugh wildly over the increasingly choleric howls coming from outside.
Severus’s hysterical laughter is a tad too wet to sound healthy. His chest feels too tight, and he’s developing a worrying dry cough. Past experience tells him his ruptured ribs probably pierced a lung when he was hurled backward. He begins to gasp and realizes he’s running out of time. He should Accio both Blood Replenishing and Pepper-Up potions before he does something as unhelpful and outright dangerous as fainting. The thought flashes, bright and urgent, through his head but doesn’t translate into action. He’s lost his wand and is too weak to cast wandlessly. He’s never been particularly gifted at that, anyway. At least he won’t die out there, in the middle of the road, murdered by bloody fairies, of all things.
This way is definitely better. He bested the little buggers, after all. He smirks, so fucking proud of himself, and looks up towards the bright blue sky. His wandering mind spares a genuinely apologetic thought for poor Minerva, who’ll have the not-so-pleasant honor of finding his lifeless body come next Friday night. He hopes the shock doesn’t kill her. Wizarding children in general desperately need her now that Albus is gone. Moreover, she still has to straighten up the mischievous nature of skinny little Nathaniel Nothbury or the boy will grow up to become a reckless rascal. She’d promised to do her best, just last month. “I’ll watch over your latest protégé until he turns into a man worthy of you, Severus.” she’d vowed, and it had made him smile so brightly-
Severus’s last conscious thought goes out to the child. He hopes the brat made it home. Hopes his grandmother followed Severus’s instructions and locked her place down. He prays this little set back won’t discourage Nathaniel from his enthusiastic campaign to glitter the entire world orange. It’s important to have ambition when you have no sense whatsoever. Ambition takes you places. It leads you straight to Hogwarts. Lands you in the Slytherin dungeons and gives you enough cunning to help you survive until you grow wiser, wilier, greater. Ambition guides your steps as you learn to rub elbows with the best of the best, and helps you find that place in the Wizarding World that’s only yours to take. A place no one else can fill. Severus is certain that Nathaniel's’ place in the Wizarding World will be bright indeed. Bright and glittery and— orange.
TBC.
Next
Back
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-26 07:33 pm (UTC)It’s nice to see Severus being honest with himself and admitting that there are people he let’s into his heart. But I guess he has to be such a moron about it, he can’t help it.
To be honest, my snickers about the ‚Trooping Fairies‘ died a quick if reluctant death. I surely had not expected this kind of violence. I’m glad it’s over. Now I just have to wait and see how exactly Severus road to recovery looks like.
Thank you, dear Pekeleke, for this very surprising second chapter. (I know there‘s already another one, but I‘ll be patient and read one a day.) ((And we‘ll see how long I‘ll be able to restrain myself :P ))
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-27 12:53 pm (UTC)I agree with you about the level of violence depicted here being out of character for a fic of mine. I must admit that this is the chapter that took the most time to write in the entire fic. I was determined to push myself a bit, writing-wise. I wanted to tackle the sort of stuff I normally shy away from, and I think I managed to do it in a way that, while not exactly pleasant, at least both defines Severus's character as someone who doesn't need Harry's protection, and neatly bypasses the problem of finding a way to get Harry past Severus's obnoxiously tall hedge. :D
I'm glad that you enjoyed watching Severus admit that there are people in his life that he loves to distraction. I like to think he's mellowed after the end of the war. Let's hold on to the hope that Severus's insight into how his heart decides it loves somebody, will work to Harry's advantage at some point. ;)
I'm very impressed with your restraint. Reading only one chapter when there are two of them available is not something I can do, myself, and I admire you for trying.
Thanks, as always, for taking the time to both read and review this story so far. Your kind and lovely comment meant the world to me, my dear friend.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-27 05:51 pm (UTC)Even though this chapter gave you so much trouble, it's nowhere to be seen. The action flows and leaps and bounds! It's really well done. I mean, even though my mind says those fairies are sure cute, I just as sure wouldn't want to get anywhere near them.
Aha! There is it, the reason for this chapter - to get Harry past Severus's 'obnoxiously tall hedge'. Are we talking about shrubs or about different barriers, I wonder? :P Yes, Severus better just accept, once Harry makes it into his heart!
Haha, my restraint is not really what's going on here. I have to learn for a test I have to write next week, so I don't have as much time to read and comment as I'd like. But it's something to look forward to, as some kind of reward for doing my 'homework'.
So, enough for this comment (it was supposed to be a short reply!) I'm off to read the next chapter. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-28 01:42 pm (UTC)LOL. I was talking about an actual bush-like hedge, but I suppose Severus has emotional hedges too, so yeah, poor Harry will have to jump through all sorts of hoops if he wants to get his man. :D
Ah, I see. Well, I’m still impressed by your restraint anyway. And I wish you the best of lucks with that exam of yours. :)