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THE VOICE UNDER ALL SILENCES. Chapter 30.

Potter's first visit to the castle was an unmitigated disaster, and so were the second, and the third.

Severus was honest enough to recognize that much of the blame for their failure to... return... to the earlier days of their so called friendship rested mostly on his shoulders, but that didn't stop him from despairing that they'd never manage to repair what had been broken when the child dared to introduce his unwanted confession of affection into the mix.

He desired to return to the feeling of contented ease that he'd once experienced in the company of the gryffindor, but that was just... not possible any longer.

No matter how many times he berated himself for it, he could not relax enough to accept the boy's actions at face value and he was so constantly on edge, trying to analyze Potter's every gesture, every word, every facial expression, that every conversation they attempted soon became an stilted exercise in sheer determination to continue with a task that had lost all of its appeal for the both of them.

The ghost of abject failure hovered over them as cold and friendless as a Dementor. As merciless an enemy as the monstrous creatures themselves and also equally hopeless.

Despite his conscious desire not to do so, he discovered that he jerked away every single time the brat so much as tried to touch him. He reacted rather badly to the auror's proximity, too. And refused, plain and simply, to move away from behind the barricading safety that his desk provided him with.

After the excruciating way in which both of them had just... stared at each other in almost near silence, for forty minutes straight the previous Saturday, Severus had decided to give up. He was reasonably certain that the gryffindor wouldn't show up this week, either. And, in a way, he believed that this outcome was... maybe not exactly what he'd hoped for, but at least it was better than the alternative. He had tried, this time he'd tried his best and it hadn't made a difference in the end...

He could now move on with the knowledge that it hadn't been his fault that things had ended this badly. Not really. He had tried. Really tried, but the friendship had been too damaged to be saved...

He'd chosen poorly this time around and he'd paid the price for it. He'd endured three whole Saturdays of uncomfortable misery and it'd be madness to allow that torture to continue, when it was plain to see that things would never return to the way they used to be.

Decision made, he decided to drown his disappointment in a veritable mountain of paperwork and proceeded to rip letters and sign documents, answer floo-calls and offer the most pointed negative that his cutting tongue could come up with to another batch of mentorship hopefuls, without even bothering to stop to have breakfast. Or lunch. Without really paying attention to any of Draco's protests that he'd hardly seen him recently... Turning a deaf ear to Minnie's worried ranting, about the irresponsibility of working himself into the grave, while his body was supposed to be recovering from the trauma of his long illness...

At some point or other they'd even dared to send Poppy over and he'd growled at her so fiercely that she screamed in his face.

Castle elves came and went, carrying trays of food to and from the kitchen, grumbling under their breath when they found them untouched, but he ignored the whole lot and carried on.

After one of the most irritating weeks he could remember, Saturday finally arrived and, as five o'clock approached, the most awful knot of anxious apprehension began to burn his stomach with the poisonous insidiousness of acid. His forehead started to bead with a truly inexplicable amount of sweat and he shivered, feeling surprisingly cold and tense. Uneasy...

He started to shake so much that his elegant script became visibly affected. It was tilted to the right a bit too much. The clear lines had lost their sharpness and, horror of horrors: there were actual minute deviations from a perfectly straight line that would openly reveal, to any one who'll read this, that his hand had been shamefully unsteady as he wrote...

He was so annoyed with himself that he flung his quill away and a spurt of dark ink sprayed the whole desk in a wide arch. His long fingers rose to pinch the prominent bump on the bridge of his nose with a brutality that threatened to leave nail marks on his pale skin. The explosive sigh that emanated from his painfully constricted chest managed to mask the sudden whoosh of the floo connexion as it became suddenly active so that, for a long second, he wasn't even aware that he had company.

"Severus?"

Potter's unexpected call made him jump. His hand lowered so hastily that he bumped his bony wrist on the edge of the desk and had to grit his teeth in order to swallow the pained groan that rose up the back of his throat.

He was utterly flustered. He was shocked beyond reason at the sheer nervousness that had gripped him upon hearing the boy's voice...

He couldn't understand his own behavior. His own reactions. His own instinctive... discomfort... with everything that had to do with the two of them. His mind whirled and blanked out at the same time, so much so, that he couldn't bring himself to utter a single word. He was perfectly unable to formulate a single clear thought. He seemed to be running on sheer... anxiety...

The gryffindor rushed to him. Calloused fingers circling around his wounded wrist with so much gentleness that a lump the size of Russia lodged in Severus' already constricted throat. He was startled by the sheer sense of comfort that the simple touch brought him. By how much he... valued the shadow of concern that darkened the youth's green eyes as they clashed against his own with frowning seriousness.

"I'm sorry if I startled you, Severus, but... you looked as if you were a million miles away"

His heart pounded within his chest with force enough to make him feel quite dizzy. There was a sickening kind of tension settling, like an unmovable rock, in the pit of his stomach and he wondered how it was possible for the child to be unaware of just how much his mere presence affected him...

"I... yes... I'm afraid that I... I've been troubled by work. It'd be best if we cancel our plans for tea and just... call it a day. I have a ton of things to do, Potter." He managed to whisper through the unbearable constriction in his chest and felt like lowering his head in shamed humiliation when the child simply sighed.

"How badly did you hurt your wrist, Severus?"

Dark eyes blinked in dazed discomfort and he attempted to pull his limb free from his companion's gentle grip.

"It's just a little bump. I'm positive that I shall live to see the morning.”

The auror ignored him regally and those gentle fingers cradled his bony wrist tenderly, turning it this way and that with disconcerting focus.

"It'll bruise, I think. Do you have any Bruise Healing Paste here or shall I go fetch it from Madam Pomfrey?"

He was horrified by the very idea of sending for Poppy. She'll give him Hell if Potter made her worry about him...

"There's no need for any of that, for Merlin's sake!" He spluttered in discomfited uneasiness.

Fierce green eyes settled on his flushed face with a kind of calm forbearance.

"Just because no one has bothered to look after you properly, so far, doesn't mean that you don't deserve it, Severus. Your wrist is already red. I can see that it'll swell in the next few hours... It's no skin off my nose to slap some bloody healing paste on it, in order to make it better, for goodness sake!. There's no need for you to become this defensive over it, you know?"

The gentleness of the rebuke affected him far more powerfully than straightforward frustration would have done. He floundered under the look the boy gave him, feeling awkward enough to flush under the disconcerting amount of sheer tenderness that was being directed towards him.

"Accio Light Bruise Healing Paste!" He whispered slowly after a second, praying to the founders for this to be one of those times when his magic actually responded to his command, instead of subjecting him to the most awful sense of failure. He didn't know if he could bear the humiliation of being shown to be more squib than wizard in front of the boy...

His wand responded only fleetingly and it was clear to him, almost at once, that he was doomed to suffer the indignity of having failed to summon his own bloody potion from the next room. Abject misery clouded his every thought and his already black eyes dulled with the most distressed sense of unbearable shame. He was unable to sustain the steady green gaze that was intently focused on him and his head lowered, utterly mortified, towards the floor.

A beat of silence followed as his eyes closed and his heart just... froze.

Then Potter's too-warm hand abandoned his wrist completely and he felt those careful fingers card through the long tresses of his hair with the delicate gentleness of utter, undisguised devotion.

"It's getting better, Severus. I know that you don't believe me, but... I actually sensed your power in the room for a brief second. You just need some more time and a little patience... Then we'll see you going around this old place, putting the fear of Snape into all the little miscreants that are running amok all over your school..."

The words failed so completely to comfort him that he couldn't even manage a weak snort. The moment stretched and stretched. A thick tension rose between them both as the boy waited for some sort of response that he felt utterly unprepared to deliver.

After a second or two a sigh rent the air. It was deep and it was bitter. It was nervous, broken, harsh... Potter's hand curled around his head and carefully proceeded to pull on his hair, forcing his face upwards until they both stared at one another in the quiet of the office.

The smile that graced the auror's lips was a brave thing. A pink slash of tender sorrow. A lovely gift meant to soothe Severus' own unbearable disappointment with himself.

"Why don't we try it together, Severus?. You do the casting and I... I'll boost your power with my own. Wouldn't you prefer that over having me summon the thing myself?"

A truly terrible sense of imminent danger engulfed his every sense then. He could not cope with the delicate nuances of... further, indisputable intimacy that lay hidden in that simple offer of help. Magic performance was something truly private to every wizard. One's power belonged to no one but oneself for the whole of a witch or wizard's life. To... share... something so personal with another in any shape or form could be considered, in many ways, to be just as intimate an act as engaging in sexual intercourse...

"I don't think..." He began to answer, only to be silenced by the gentle pressure of Potter's index finger over is cold lips.

"Ssshhh!. Why don't you stop thinking, for once, and accept this one thing that I want to give you?. It's only an accio spell. There's nothing so complicated about it at all. It'll be over in a blink, you'll see, and then I'll even let you forget that it ever happened, if you want. Just.... let me give you this, please."

He felt broken by the longing contained in that last word. Utterly undone by the very shattered brightness that had taken over the verdant magnificence of those jewel-colored eyes, hinting at the nearness of tears. He did not want to see this child cry because of him. He could not understand his own dislike of that idea, but it certainly was twisting his insides into an unbearable agony of guilt...

He pushed his pale face away. Lips retreating from all contact with the gryffindor's silencing finger in a move that made them both exhale with tension. Potter looked ready to scream and Severus simply... turned his head away, towards the half opened door that lead into his bedroom, and closed his dark eyes as if in pain.

After a second or two he felt the boy's determined hand curl around the fist with which he was clutching his own wand and his lips tightened in horror at what this child was trying to do here. No one else had ever offered him a gift such as this one...

"Potter... boosting someone else's magic is an act that has very specific connotations in the magical world” He protested gruffly. His alarmed dark eyes fixed on that young and determined face with urgent desperation. He needed to make the child understand!.

“This is the kind of act that mothers perform on behalf of their children. Or a partner grants the other in times of great need, of illness... I can not accept such thing from you. That would be tantamount to... acknowledging you as my..." His voice halted mid-sentence as his own inability to say the words finally rendered him mute. His eyes widened and his cheeks flushed in rattled agitation. His throat constricted with the most god-awful tension and he swallowed uneasily, feeling utterly exposed and perfectly at a loss in the devastated little silence that ensued.

Potter came around his chair and knelt beside it, forcing him to look down at his face despite his very obvious reluctance to do so. The boy was pale and serious. Determined. He looked beautifully fragile and magnificently strong at the same time...

"I love you, Severus Snape. I admit to the existence of that one emotion freely. I'll defend it from those who'd dare to threaten it and I'll show it to you, and to all others, in every way that I can. I want to share myself with you!. I want to do it of my own free will and with no strings attached...

You don't have to feel guilty about taking what I can't wait for you to take!. Don't you see that I'll give this to no one else?... I know that you are trying to protect me, but the truth is that you can't. I don't want to be protected!. I don't want to forget you, or this... I'm going to love you no matter how much, or how little, you give me...

I promise you that you can accept this without worrying that I'll make it into something other than... just a spot of help you agreed to let me lend you. Nothing less, Severus, but also nothing more than that..."

He was shocked by the strength of his own reactions, by the horrible uncertainty that suddenly gripped him. By the fact that he experienced joy, relief and just... sheer exultant pleasure from the uncalled for avowal of devotion that he'd just received...

Wasn't this monstrous of him?. Wasn't it greedy?. Didn't it make him into the sort of man who'd take, and take, and then take some more, without ever bothering to offer some sort of acknowledgement in return?. Wasn't this the kind of creature the Dark Lord himself had been? Or his own father?...

Ebony colored eyes flashed with the most abject of fears.

"I do not deserve this, Potter..." He whispered with a broken and terrible finality.

The boy smiled at him sweetly. Callused hand coming up to cradle his own gently. Curling his own long, potion-tainted fingers determinedly around his pale birch wand.

"Of course you deserve it, my love. You deserve this and more... You just can't see it yet. This is just... a paltry wand-trick, Severus. There's nothing so momentous about it. Come on... say the words... your wrist is about as swollen as a Pixie's head and you are still arguing with me, you impossible man!...”

He swallowed then, drained of all fight by the sheer devotion that he'd heard in every single word. By the longing, so fierce and proud and utterly generous that was tainting those green eyes with a bright joy. He felt both humbled and honored at the same time. He felt painfully weak and also truly strong in that one moment. He felt equally worthy and perfectly undeserving of all the things that this one man wanted to give him...

The wand lifted as the boy directed his hand. Warm palm blessing his stone-cold skin with the auror's own heat. Their fingers linked together and Severus lost himself in the unfathomable beauty of a pair of green eyes that seemed to want to hold him until the very end of time...

He felt the boy's unstoppable power curse through their fingers. Potter's warm and familiar magic danced across his nerve-endings with all the contentment of a young puppy returning home after it's first trip outside. His own strength surged forth slowly, rising to meet this foreign energy with a cautious, wary curiosity. Both powers merged and his wand trembled under the onslaught of their combined magic.

"Accio Light Bruise Healing Paste!" He heard his own voice whisper the spell aloud, as if through a thick veil made out of terror and confusion. Of elation, hope and fear. Made out of reckless daring and instinctive caution. Made out of utterly disorienting uncertainty...

Despite his weak pronunciation the magic was strong. Determined. Flawless. It reacted just as it was meant to do, bringing the pale blue container that held his healing paste floating across the room, straight towards them. He was invaded by a strange, unique sensation of sheer triumph and utter surrender at the same time. He'd never been one half of a pair before this moment. This was a magical union, no matter how brief. They were one for this brief instant in time. Two very different human entities utterly fused into absolute perfection. Something unique and theirs. Something just... precious...

When the jar hit their fingers the spell broke and his wand sagged against his sweaty palm, unresponsive once more. He started to tremble with utmost distress. Perfectly unable to cope with the notion that he... he'd been one with Harry Potter and now... now he was back to being... alone... Again!...

The boy held him very tightly for a second. He was silent. He was warm. He seemed determined and calm.

"It's alright, Severus... It's alright!. I'm here, you see? I'm right here!."

It was a second or two before he understood that there were tears in his eyes. Twin trails of overwhelmed misery were running down his ashen face, leaving behind a crystalline path of wet fire that his companion was trying tirelessly to dry. He was so... uncomfortable with his own emotional reaction that he shut his eyes too tightly. Turned his head abruptly away. Attempted to retreat...

A rueful chuckle rent the air and he all but jumped when he felt the boy's careful fingers curl around his bruised wrist with utter gentleness.

"You are always so defensive, so reluctant... It's like trying to goad a suspicious hippogryph into a formal bow..."

He was startled by that utterly moronic comparison.

"Hippogryphs are creatures of great pride, Potter. I don't think anyone with two neurons to rub together would ever imagine that I have reason enough to be proud about anything!"

Potter dared to shrug his wide shoulders, seemingly unaffected by the scathing glare that Severus had directed towards him. He was busy opening the paste jar and sticking his fingers inside of it, scooping a generous amount of the thick cream into his fingers. The boy proceeded then to apply it carefully into the swollen skin of his bony wrist with so much focused attention that Severus felt himself flush anew. He was unbalanced by the roller-coaster of emotions that he'd just been put through. He was tired and he felt vulnerable. He disliked the feeling of being utterly out of control that he was experiencing...

He was more than merely appalled by the actual strength of the emotions that were cramping his stomach into a wild mass of thick knots, and he felt honestly unprepared to deal with any of it. He was truly terrified. He was more than ready to... retreat... into his shell and remain there for all eternity: safe in the knowledge that he'd be unreachable. Soothed by the fact that he'd be spared all this riot of... feelings and confusion. Of paralyzing guilt. Of terrifying longing...

"Hippogryphs are only proud because they are afraid, Severus. They are deeply insecure creatures at heart, I think. They are too self-conscious to relax their tightly held guard and that is why their behavior is so unapproachable most of the time... They are willing to try, though. It's just hard for them to do so.

You, on the other hand... are both insecure and reluctant. I don't know if you were always this way, but... that's how I see you right now. I'm trying to move us forwards and you are resisting me at every step of the way. I can see that you are afraid. I can see how badly I'm pushing you...

I do understand your need to withdraw, even if I don't always acknowledge it. I wish I could. I really, really wish you were the kind of man I could trust not to retreat out of... mere fear. But you are not. You just... aren't!.

That's a reality that we'll both have to learn to deal with. Because I am neither leaving nor willing to allow you to hide yourself away from us. From what we could become together. From a future that might, just might, finally make you happy..."

He was shocked by the brat's daring little rant. By the boldness of the admission he'd just heard. By the fact that Potter meant to... continue with his useless quest to change his mind on the matter of where this relationship of theirs was heading...

"You can't make me love you out of sheer pigheadedness, Potter!. That is not how emotions work... I've told you this before: you'll get nothing but mere friendship out of me. Nothing!. Keeping up unreasonable hopes to the contrary will only hurt your feelings in the end!"

Potter's smile was a crooked thing.

"Whoever said I'm not talking about friendship, Severus?. You've been truly unsettled this past weeks. You are plainly reluctant to spend time alone in my company.

You've refused to get out of this office every single time that I've suggested it, limiting our interactions to stilted, painfully awkward dissertations on the weather over cooling cups of tea...

You've been trying to sabotage what little is left of the beautiful thing that we found together. Don't you dare trying to deny it!. Wasn't that what all that rubbish about you being too busy for our tea-date really meant?"

He stiffened in affronted defensiveness:

"They are not dates, Potter. They are... they are... meetings!"

Those green eyes flashed with frustration.

"That, right there, is exactly what's wrong with us, Severus!. You are now so spooked about my feelings for you that you are trying to label our relationship to death!. Does it really matter if we have dates or meetings?. We get to spend some time together. We should try to build on that, instead of getting bogged down on definitions!"

His heart clenched with discontent as his gaze clashed with bright green. So much green... So much brightness... Darkly-lashed eagerness brimming with sheer hope...

"I don't want to hurt you, Potter. I'm trying to make sure that you understand exactly what this is" He chocked out, impatiently.

There was laughter then. A mirthless, truly brittle sound that Severus hated with all of his heart.

"I know exactly what this is, Severus. You don't have to try and kill it with your labels, at least not on my account...

Why don't we leave the names out of this altogether?. I promise you it won't harm me. Or you!... Don't you see that we are trying so hard to protect one another that we are losing it all?"

The question echoed around the room with such great desperation that it touched something deep and truly wounded within him. Something that reminded him sharply of the boy he'd been so long ago. Begging Lily for that last chance that she'd never gave him... He felt the sharpness of that memory dig into his consciousness and bury itself there. He felt the uneasiness it caused him spread like a cold sweat all over him.

"I don't know how to do that, Potter. I can't just... turn my misgivings on and off as if they are all wired to a muggle switch..." He retorted finally. Voice turned hoarse with the awful awareness that he'll fail the boy here, in exactly the same way that Lily had failed his own teenage self...

A smile brightened the features of the gryffindor and warm fingers held his own so tightly that they hurt for a brief second. Potter blinked up at him and whispered eagerly:

"Don't give up, Severus!. Don't try to put us into a box. Other than that... I think we are going to be fine, as long as you remember that I'm here to stay and make the effort to, at least, meet me half-way...

If you allow me entry I'll do the rest, I promise you... Neither of us will come to harm here, not from this!..."

TBC...

Ch29

Ch31