Chasing Moonbeams. Ch22.
Aug. 10th, 2019 05:35 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?”
Chapter 22.
Thankfully, the outing with Narcissa is a success and, in the exultant high that follows it, Severus convinces himself that he’ll be able to kill his nascent attraction to the boy stone dead the moment he brings Potter and his mysterious Slytherin chit together. Severus knows himself well enough to understand that even though he may be willing to indulge in the dreamy-eyed, diffuse sense of hope that comes with having a crush on an unattached, gorgeous, wizard, he is not the sort of man who’d allow himself to entertain such thoughts about someone else’s lover.
He spends a good two days pondering the problem. Combs painstakingly through his memory in an effort to make a mental list of every Slytherin female the savior could have possibly come into contact with while he was a student at Hogwarts that fits the bill of a motherly, peace-loving maniac even remotely. At the end of it all, Severus’s list of candidates is pitifully short. Five names. A miserably small handful of possibilities, none of which seem particularly plausible to him.
He shares both his list and the knowledge that Potter’s girl is a Slytherin with both Pansy and Daphne, who are very shocked indeed upon hearing the news, and understandably eager to assist in Severus’s quest to ensure Potter’s romantic bliss. With their help, Severus strikes one name off his list because the lady in question is the retiring sort and Potter, to the best of their knowledge, hasn’t ever been to Cornwall, so the chances that she is the one who holds his heart are negligible.
The girls manage to add six more names to the list; people who graduated a handful of years ahead of Potter, and found employment in the Ministry before the end of the war. The savior could have easily come into contact with all of them after graduation. One of the ladies in question, the most likely of the lot in Severus’s opinion, works as an expert in magical tracking for the Auror department.
Severus decides to mention her to Potter in casual conversation and is thoroughly stumped by the boy’s distinct lack of interest in the topic. Potter knows her. She is ‘a decent enough tracker’ who enjoys wearing thoroughly intimidating hair-bows, apparently. Mentioning the other girls in his list has about the same effect, and draws equally lackluster enthusiasm.
When consulted, Blaise stares at Severus’s list with raised eyebrows and tells him not to bother. Apparently, Weasley mentioned recently that there’s finally some hope with regards to Potter’s love life, so Blaise doesn’t see the point of getting involved in it. Severus can’t possibly confess that he is trying to expedite the success of Potter’s romantic endeavors for his own peace of mind; thus, he leaves his former student’s club empty-handed. Draco offers to talk to Potter, or Granger since she is more likely to see the sense of letting them intercede on behalf of the savior with the girl in question, but Severus would rather not take things that far just yet. He’s already offered his help directly to the Gryffindor, after all.
Minerva chokes on her drink when Severus asks her point-blank to come up with a list of the most motherly Slytherin girls she can think of. She coughs for five minutes straight, then plonks her tumbler rather forcefully on the low table between them and sputters accusingly, “I thought you were gay!”
Severus blinks, “Er-
“Don’t you ‘er-’ at me, Severus Tobias Snape. You told me you were -and I quote- ‘definitely and incurably gay’ when I tried to hook you up with Amaryllis, my second cousin twice removed. Don’t you dare tell me now that was a bluff aimed at wriggling out of meeting her because she ended up marrying an absolute boor who moved the family to Cape Verde, and I haven’t seen her in ten years. She's the most motherly woman in existence. More motherly than Molly Weasley even and, if you'd married her, she’d still be here, in England, where I could visit her every time I wanted.”
“I am gay, Min-min. Don’t you remember how I fell madly in love with Regulus Black in my sixth year? That’s the reason why his idiot brother tried to murder me via werewolf. Sirius Black didn’t think I was good enough to join the family. Not that it mattered, Regulus disappeared from the face of the Earth a few years later. I never knew what happened to him until Potter revealed the contents of the note hidden inside Slytherin’s locket.”
“I remember now. Regulus Black banished the summer Greyback’s pack was trying to expand their territory southward. The Order assumed he’d been one of the wolves’ victims and declared him dead within three months of his disappearance. You were inconsolable.”
“I was. I loved him very much. I wanted to marry him.”
“Oh, Severus-
“It’s all right. Those dreams are lost now. Regulus has been dead for a very long time.”
“I see. Then why are you searching for a motherly Slytherin girl if you have no plans to settle down?”
“I’ve settled down already, thank you very much.”
“You’re determined to remain single, you mean.”
“Determined? No. But I’m likely to remain single anyway. It’d take a courageous man indeed to even flirt with the likes of me, there aren’t many of those around.”
“If it’s bravery you seek, I’ve had a hand in shaping several fine Gryffindors. Some of them even claim to be as definitely and incurably gay as you, Severus, and for you, my dear, I’d be delighted to try my hand at matchmaking.“
Severus snorts, “We’ll see. For now, though, I’m the one playing matchmaker, Min-min, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not a particularly gifted one.”
“Oh! Who are we trying to matchmake? Is it Draco? I thought he was into boys. And didn’t you mention that Narcissa wants him to concentrate on establishing his career first?”
“It’s not Draco. It’s Potter.” Severus explains quietly. “It has come to my attention that the boy is smitten with a former Slytherin. A motherly one, to be precise. He mentioned the other day that he’s not confident of his chances to charm the girl in question, so I thought I may intercede on his behalf.”
Minerva stares at him for so long that Severus wonders if she’s frozen in place. “Are you absolutely certain that Harry Potter told you he is in love with a Slytherin girl?”
Severus frowns, “Why? You think him too precious for the likes of us? I never realized you were such a house snob, Minerva.”
”Hush! That’s not what I meant at all. It’s just that- Oh, dear. I fear it isn’t my place to tackle this issue with you, but you’re so ridiculously blind. Poor Harry!”
Severus frowns. “What on Earth are you on about?”
To his shock, Minerva doesn’t answer him directly but posses a guiding question instead. “Don’t you think that if Harry wanted a motherly girl, he’d have married Ginevra Weasley? They were together for almost two years.”
“The Weasley chit isn’t motherly at all.” Severus scoffs.
“True. But her mother makes up for that in spades, and Harry is already deeply attached to the family. He’d have become an official part of it if he’d married her. Why choose a different girl when he had that one hanging from his every word? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe she isn’t what he is looking for.”
“Exactly!” Minerva beams, looking at him expectantly, and Severus stares right back, wondering if she’s gone crazy. Silence grows between them. After about a minute, the Headmistress’s smile begins to waver, and she makes a vague motion with her hand. It’s the universal gesture all teachers use to encourage a particularly slow student to expand on his line of thought, and Severus flushes a bright red upon finding himself on the receiving end of it.
“I’m afraid your explanation may not have been as clear as you believe it to be, Minerva,” Severus says tightly.
“Oh, for Merlin’s sake! You’re a bonafide genius in 3 magical fields, Severus. How can you possibly be so obtuse when it comes to human emotion? Listen carefully, please: Harry didn’t marry Ginevra Weasley because she isn’t what he is looking for. It doesn’t get clearer than that, dear.”
“I’ve got that part. I said that myself, Min-min,” Severus points out defensively, “Do you expect me to arrive at the conclusion that Potter wants Molly Weasley instead?”
Minerva splutters indignantly and sits ram-rod straight at the very edge of her chair. “That’s not as funny as you think, young man. It’s also quite disturbing. Molly Weasley is as good as Harry’s mother.”
“Then what the hell are you trying to imply? Be clear, old hag.”
“Harry Potter is not in love with a Weasley.”
Severus glares at her. “I know that already. None of them are Slytherin, are they?”
Minerva twitches with frustration. Then leans forward and takes hold of her discarded glass. Severus watches her drain half it's contents in one go, and his left eyebrow rises towards his hairline. She catches his judgmental expression and huffs like a ruffled owl. “Fine! Let me be absolutely clear then: Harry is gay, Severus. Definitely. Extremely. Incurably so. There’s no way he is in love with a girl.”
Severus simply sits there, staring at her like she’s lost her bloody mind, “You must be mistaken,” he says faintly and watches her brown eyes soften even as she shakes her head from left to right.
“I am not.”
“But— he is in love with a motherly, peace-loving maniac.”
“So?”
“How can he possibly be in love with a motherly maniac if he doesn’t like girls?”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you there. I have no idea what that motherly maniac comment even means.”
Severus’s fingertips twitch around his glass of Firewhiskey. He looks down and stares blindly into its rich, golden contents. He feels strangely lightheaded, unpleasantly disconnected from reality, and at the same time bizarrely hipper-aware of everything. “There are rumors. About how a couple of years ago, Potter became smitten with— an individual who exhibits those characteristics.”
“Rumors.” Minerva zeroes in on that word with undisguised contempt. Disapproval drips as freely from her tone as water from a faulty faucet. Severus squirms in his seat, feeling young and utterly ridiculous.
“Rumors are a Slytherin’s best friends, Minerva. You know this.”
“I know that basing your decisions on information gathered via rumor isn’t a particularly wise practice. It’s also beneath you, Severus.”
Severus flinches. “What else am I to do? We’ve been cut off from our usual sources, and we must remain informed of what’s going on around us. It hasn’t been safe for Slytherins to embrace cluelessness in any shape or form for a while now. We need time and forewarning of the changes coming our way if we want to survive them.”
Minerva sighs. Plonks her glass back on the table, and rubs her eyes with the very tips of her age-spotted fingers. “The only changes coming your way are those brought on by your recent realization that Harry can, and is willing to, help you. I’m not going to pretend things haven’t been hard for your snakes these past few years, Severus, but Harry has been fluttering around you since he graduated. You could have been where you are now ages ago if you’d paid him more attention.”
Severus frowns at her. “No. Potter wouldn’t have helped me back then. It was through his job in the neighborhood that he learned to respect me.”
“And yet he saved your life after the final battle. He testified on your behalf.”
“That is true, but-
“No.” Minerva cuts him off so firmly that Severus instinctively recoils.
“What do you mean ‘no’?” He barks, flustered, and she laughs unhappily in his face.
“Merlin! I merely mean no, Severus. I mean it’s time for you to stop trying so hard to bury your head in the sand and think! You earned Harry’s respect on the day of the final battle. That’s why he went back to the Shrieking Shack for you. That’s why he fought so hard for your freedom. What his job in Sunlit Lane taught him with regards to you is something completely different. He learned everything about you then, and I don’t mean the teacher he already knew. I mean the real you, Severus. The warm, loving, and slightly lonely gentleman who is good enough with children to have a bouncy five-year-old hanging from his every word.”
Severus gapes. “Are you implying that I am Potter’s motherly sort?”
“Of course you are, you, blithering idiot!”
“I can’t be. I’m not a peace-loving maniac.”
“Aren’t you?”
“No!”
“You left Hogwarts because you were tired of teaching ‘squabbling’ children. You haven’t so much as participated in a dueling contest since the end of the war, even though you used to take delight in doing so. You told me to my face that you’re tired of war-mongering, that you don’t want to lose the friends you’ve got left to another senseless conflict. You bought yourself a cottage in the most idyllic neighborhood in Wizarding Britain, Severus, and you hardly ever leave the safety of it. I’d say you’re a peace-loving maniac indeed.”
“This is insane.”
“It isn’t. I’ve been telling you for months. You’ve tempted Harry Potter into falling for you with all that artless charm you don’t even know you possess.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard all day.”
“No, it isn’t. What’s ridiculous is to hold onto the illusion that Harry is in love with some random Slytherin girl when the boy is a raging homosexual and has never even looked, let alone tried to talk to or bothered to find a way to hover for years around the fringes of the daily life of any Slytherin who isn’t you, Severus.”
Severus shivers from head to toes under the unrelenting onslaught of Minerva’s conviction. He can’t believe she is right, but his arguments seem risible in comparison to hers. Despite Severus’s numerous attempts to bring them into casual conversation, Potter hasn’t shown a smidgen of interest in any of the girls on his list. Severus thinks back to that day at the ice-cream parlor, and his increasingly flustered mind flashes back to the way Potter held his hand. The way the boy had looked directly into his eyes and told him in that intense, raspy tone that he wanted to be what his mysterious beloved needed— Oh, Merlin! Potter had objected every single time Severus labeled his crush as ‘a chit,’ and he’d been idiotic enough to dismiss the savior’s repeated protests. Furthermore, the boy had been blatantly fishing for Severus’s thoughts on the matter of romantic entanglements that afternoon. Was it possible that the Gryffindor had been flirting with him too? Had Potter gone as far as to attempt to confess his feelings, and had Severus been too focused on his own agenda, too blind, to see it?
“How can this be? He’s— I’m twenty years his senior, Minerva.”
“And Elphinstone Urquart was thirty five-years mine, and that didn’t stop him from proposing. Or me from eventually marrying him. We were happy, Elph and I. Wizards and witches live so long that a twenty, thirty, or even a forty-year age-gap doesn’t matter much eventually. Harry will be one hundred when you’re a hundred and twenty, so what? It’s a trivial thing indeed when you think properly about it, Severus.”
Severus stares at her, wide-eyed. He is certain the confusion-fueled distress he is currently experiencing shows on his face. His perception of Harry Potter has changed forever and, with it, the landscape of every possible future Severus has dared to dream about regarding their friendship. If Minerva is right, friendship is the least Potter will offer him, and Severus is too overwhelmed right now to try figuring out whether he is excited by that prospect or terrified out of his wits. “Potter is kind, Min-min,” he whispers rawly, and she has known him long enough to understand precisely what that means.
“Some weaknesses are worth having, Severus,” she says softly. He shakes his head from left to right, attempting to reject the notion, even though he knows himself to be dismally ambivalent of his position in the matter. He is a Slytherin. He is aware he has weaknesses, just like everybody else, but he can’t help seeing them as awful disadvantages, unwelcome chinks in his armor that his rivals exploit gleefully.
“This could be more than weakness, Minerva. It could be disastrous. It could be the end of me. I’m obsessive, jealous, needy. I’m— romantically fragile. There’s a reason why I never pursued a relationship after Regulus disappeared.”
“That was a long time ago, and Harry isn’t Regulus, Severus. He is not facing any danger and, even if he was, he is the most powerful mage of his generation. There is a pretty good chance that he’ll still be by your side when you take your last breath. Don’t you want that for yourself, dear? I certainly want it for you.”
“Of course I want it, but—“ Severus doesn’t know the right words to further explain what he is certain Minerva understands perfectly anyway, so he doesn’t. Longing for companionship, for belonging, is a weakness too. One that Severus has always been cursed with. Potter could be the end of that if it’s true that the savior is interested in him, but— should Severus allow himself to fall for the boy, then the Gryffindor would become his Achilles’s heel, the one thing he wouldn’t survive losing. Severus’s every instinct tells him to run away, to seek safety, but there are only two paths ahead of him, and they both look equally perilous. His foolish heart’s desires have placed him once more between the devil and the deep blue sea.
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