Samhain fire.

[pekeleke]

Author: pekeleke
Pairing: Severus Snape/Harry Potter
Word Count: 5567
Rating: T
Summary: Samhain fire can be built for many purposes. Severus thinks about Harry when he chooses the nature of his own...
Warning(s): None
A/N: English is not my mother tongue so mistakes are to be expected.
Beta: None
Disclaimer: The characters used in this fiction are not mine. No money is being made from it.

 

Samhain fire.

 

Severus' Samhain fire is born from Hawthorn and Apple wood. The influence of the first will bring him protection in the coming year, the second is meant to help him heal from the wounds of his past. He needs to trust more, fear less, embrace the love he's been offered...

Bitter smoke burns his eyes as he gazes down into the newborn flames that he's managed to produce. Dusk has barely started to darken the gray horizon and he is already here, struggling with two carefully chosen branches to build this fragile looking pyre. This... offering to hope that honors an old, half-forgotten, ritual. His mother used to believe in the old tales of Samhain fire. Her family had a long tradition of worshiping the Old Powers and she raised him on a diet of whispered fairy tales and blind faith on things like elements and planets. On woods and creatures, too. On Nature turned magic...

None of those things had ever helped her in life, they hadn't helped him either, but he still came out every year on Hallows Eve to perform a variant of the same old rite that she'd once taught him. He'd always felt he owed her at least this much and was willing enough to offer this small token to her spirit. It helped him keep her close, preserving his distant memories of her in a way that nothing else could, for she was long dead and he'd been alone for decades now. They had both been... pariahs. Both forgotten. Both equally unlucky in things like love and friendship. She'd chosen her husband with her heart but had learned the bitter taste of soul-breaking disappointment way too soon, and he... he'd latched onto the wrong person. Onto the wrong kind of emotion. Onto the wrong sex, even. He'd convinced himself that he loved a woman who had never been meant for him and his feelings of rejection had lead him down the path that landed him at the Dark Lord's feet. He'd been swallowed up by the kind of darkness that had murdered plenty of others and yet... he'd survived to see the other side of the war. He'd been granted forgiveness, given another chance. He'd been spared...

He'd returned home and attempted to go back to his usual gray existence, but there had been no more peace to be had once the transcriptions of his trial became public. He'd been hounded by a suddenly fiercely loving public and the press had driven him back to the soothing safety of Hogwarts. Even here life hadn't settled into the easy, retiring isolation he remembered. Minerva had refused to allow him hiding space and Potter... Potter had come back to teach, too, and became a puzzling source of constant companionship to him. The boy had spent months battering away at his defenses until he'd been given just one chance to forge the friendship that he so insistently claimed to want. That had been two years ago and nowadays they were as close to each other as two men who shared the same dark history, the same ghastly childhood, the shame dislike for being the focus of unwanted public attention and the same sort of job could possibly be.

Recently, though, there had been moments charged with... something. There had been heavy silences and uncomfortable tension, little sideways-looks and an increasing amount of perfectly physical contact that he hadn't been able to explain. Harry had begun to touch him all the time, to search his eyes whenever they were talking, to hang on his every word as if they were all some sort of... pearls of wisdom. The boy had started gazing at his mouth with an absent sort of longing whenever he started talking and last Friday... Last Friday he'd been convinced that the gryffindor was about to kiss him. He'd startled nervously backwards at the worst possible second and there had been nothing else for them to do but to laugh the moment awkwardly off, before wishing each other good-night. Despite that tension-filled instant of shared chuckling the look of crushed disappointment that his colleague had directed his way, just before he closed the door behind himself, had awoken something buried deep within Severus' heart. He used to dream, long ago, about finding somebody. He'd always wished to wake up one day and meet the man who could complete him. He used to pray for love not to pass him totally by in this lifetime and, once, he'd promised himself that if he ever found someone willing to have him... then he'd try to find the courage to take whatever risks needed to be taken in order to... deserve... his chance at love.

After that almost-kiss he'd twisted and turned in his bed all night long, remembering every conversation, every little joke and look, every smile, touch and indignant rant that they had shared in the last couple of years. He'd been positively ambushed by the sudden realization that they were already more than mere friends. They'd been an unspoken “item” for some time: going together to every staff party, to Minerva's little gatherings, to Molly's weekly dinners. Arranging their every holiday around each other' schedules so that neither would be forced to travel alone or remain isolated at the school during the summer... They spoke virtually every night, chatting for hours about nothing in particular. They knew each other's timetables by heart. They sat together at the high table and corrected homework in Severus' private office. They were a couple in everything but name and he'd never actually noticed it until that night.

“Severus... are you all right?”

Hearing Harry's voice so unexpectedly made him jerk around in surprised agitation. He hadn't planned on seeing the boy tonight. Hadn't wanted to have to explain exactly what it was that he was doing or why this eve's ritual would be quite different from the one he'd performed last year and every year before that...

“Harry! I... What are you doing here? I thought you were stuck guarding the punch bowl at the student's Halloween ball”

Wide, athletic shoulders shrugged with unusual carelessness as the boy came closer. He was wearing some sort of all-encompassing dark coat that must have been helping him melt into the surrounding shadows, for he looked cold and his wild hair was wind-tousled, as if he'd been out for a while.

“I bribed Pomona with a handful of those seeds Neville brought me from Peru. She was perfectly delighted to cover up for me.”

“Oh!...”

Severus was dismayed by the fact that Harry was here. He was totally unprepared to deal with the situation and it showed in the fact that he couldn't even think of a single thing to say. His precious fire began to rise in earnest at that moment, warming his extended fingers and producing a loud crackle as the flames started to sway, shifting into a dance that was as old as time itself. Reaching out to slay the growing darkness that surrounded him, as they'd been born to do.

“You usually invite me to share your Samhain fire” Harry's quiet whisper broke the impasse and Severus flinched at the raw pain that underscored each word. There were dark circles marring the flawless beauty of those green eyes and he realized that, in his zeal to avoid Harry until he felt ready enough to confront the shifting nature of their relationship, he'd forgotten to consider how his actions might have looked to the gryffindor. Feeling suddenly at a disadvantage in his crouching position he stood up and looked straight into that haunted gaze with a growing sense of guilt.

“I'm doing something else tonight. This isn't going to be just a little fire lit in honor of my mother. I plan to use the power of this night to call forth a cleansing blaze. It's... rather personal, Harry.”

His colleague's gloved hands rose agitatedly up and down in a series of forlorn little gestures that brimmed with heart-wrenching desperation. Finally the boy decided to bury his fists into the deep pockets of his coat and then stood there, utterly still and silent like some kind of eerie statue, staring alternatively between Severus and his fire with disappointed eyes.

“Have I done something wrong, Severus? I... You've been avoiding me all week. I haven't been able to catch you alone at all and that's just... it's unusual”

Those last two words were whispered in so small a tone of voice that they pierced Severus' conscience like twin darts meant to cause damage. His jaw gritted and he had to shift his gaze away from Harry's worried and pale face. He hated seeing the boy like this. Hated knowing that he'd been blind enough to ignore the damaging impact that his own instinctive reactions to his new awareness of their situation could have on the other man. He realized that what was so new and confusing for him had been probably clear as water to Harry for a long time. What he couldn't understand was why?. Why hadn't the gryffindor made the pass before now? Why had he put up with almost two years of the kind of friendship that demanded all the commitment of a romantic relationship, but offered no actual intimacy? Why hadn't this usually impatient gryffindor pushed for more once he'd finally made his move? Why had Harry left last Friday without the kiss he'd so obviously wanted? Why was he here right now, stubbornly turning his back on the possibility of finding himself someone better, younger, gentler. Someone more attractive and less damaged. Someone... worthier?

“No, you haven't done anything wrong, Harry. I've had some things on my mind recently. Things that I need to sort out. Things that I've been failing to see for a while now. Things that deserve... careful consideration”

Harry's green eyes became piercing and bright. Settling over his own features like a prove trying to dig treasure.

“Is this about last Friday?”

Fear rose in the back of Severus' mind like an all-pervading mist, making him feel both cold with dread and sickened with a shamed sort of anxiety. He'd been trying to gather his small reserve of courage in order to have this very conversation with the boy, but the truth was that he wasn't ready for it. Not yet. He'd probably never be ready. Not even if he performed this one ritual and scorched a million pieces of paper with scrawled little lines that no one would ever read... His profound lack of confidence when it came to anything even remotely linked to emotions was at the very root of his crippling fear of rejection and that, in turn, had forced him to choose isolation over companionship time and time again. He was slytherin enough to prefer safety over risk, but he didn't want to settle for mere friendship when he could have... everything.

“I... Yes. This is about last Friday”

He shocked himself by voicing that admission aloud but the boy took it far worse. He looked ready to faint, had turned as white as a sheet and his eyes were wide and too bright in the eerie, orange-tinged light coming off the building fire.

“Was it really that distasteful to you, then? Were you truly so disgusted to discover that I love you beyond friendship? Are you going to cast away two years of perfectly beautiful companionship on the strength of... a mistake?”

His chest froze upon hearing that last fiercely whispered word and he frowned at the awful implication that the gryffindor might not actually want to... go any further. His throat dried at the sickening idea that he might have been harboring the wrong kind of hopes all week long. He'd been thinking about risking. But Harry... Harry had been entrenched on the same position for too long already. Maybe the boy had never meant to go this far. Maybe he had no actual interest in moving their friendship forwards...

“A mistake?”

Severus couldn't control the biting scorn that dripped from those two words and his dark eyes looked as dead as burnt charcoal when he saw the gryffindor first flinch, then take a hasty step back in reaction to them.

“What do you want me to call it, then? A desire? I wanted to kiss you, Severus! I've been wanting to do far more than that for a long time now, but I don't think you are prepared to deal with having those sort of feelings out into the open, so... if you want me to deny them to your face then I'll do that!. I'll do anything you want, all right? I just... I don't want to lose you over this. I don't even know what I'd do if I lose you...”

The moment became an instant built on simplicity at that second. This was a single crossroads on the path of his life, one that would never take him back to the place he'd been inhabiting only a mere week ago. Whichever road he chose to travel things could never be the same, not even if he tried to forget the last seven days and Harry promised to remain a perfect gentleman for the rest of their association. Now he knew that there were deep feelings between them. Had confronted his own needs, unearthed very old longings, dared to dream the dreams of his lost youth once more. The blindfold he'd been hiding behind had finally been ripped from his eyes and now there wasn't a single fiber of his being that wanted to return to his past blindness.

“Losing me was never an option, Harry. I'm not prone to dither thus when it comes to rejecting things that I don't want. It's when my heart is... involved... that I begin to struggle and end up hurting those closest to me without meaning to. I don't want to be anyone's mistake, though. Least of all yours. I want to be... safe”

Harry became so still that he looked like a statue made out of stone. The long edges of his heavy coat flapped in the wind and the gaze that had always been able to see well past his barricading defenses raked his narrow features as the boy's eyebrows began to draw together.

“What does that mean, exactly, Severus?. Love can never be safe. It's a risk you've got to either embrace or reject completely. It can't be forced to submit to any conditions. It simply... is. I can deny mine to your face. Or I can declare it's existence boldly, bringing it out of the shadows for everyone to see. But I can not really control it. Nor can I predict how much joy, or hurt, it will bring either of us in the future.”

“From where I'm standing It doesn't seem to have brought you anything but sorrow, Harry”

“Then you are standing too far away, aren't you? It brought me closer to you than anybody else alive and allowed me to really get to know the man you hide so carefully beneath a literal armor of embittered masks. I'm the keeper of most of your great secrets and all of your pet peeves. I figure on your two-person Christmas list and have been on the receiving end of your tender care the last few times I've fallen ill. Loving you hasn't brought me any sorrow, Severus. It's waiting for you to either love me back or settle for someone else that's killing me slowly”

His senses reeled with the sudden understanding of how much time he'd wasted with his blindness. How was it possible that he'd missed all of this? How had he failed to notice that the boy... the boy seemed to almost sway instinctively towards him, his eyes shone and his voice trembled with a depth of feeling that just couldn't be denied. This could be his. No. This was his already, it had now been his for years. This couldn't possibly be a prank. Not if it involved Harry... He knew the gryffindor's character inside out and trusted him with the same kind of blind faith that he'd once bestowed upon Albus Dumbledore. There was no reason for him to fear the worst here, he could afford to come forward and... reach out. He could take this small risk and hold on for dear life. He could finally have someone...

“Samhain fire is said to stand for sunlight. It's a symbol of blind hope in the arrival of a future that might bring the renewal of past joy, the return of all lost warmth, prosperity and health after a period of absence. Samhain fire is a promise for tomorrow, Harry, and I... I've come here tonight to lit a blaze born of both Hawthorn and Apple, so that I can burn my present fears into nothingness, forcing them to abandon me completely as I embark on a future that has no place for them”

Harry gasped suddenly, his green eyes wide and bright with hope for the first time since he appeared out of nowhere.

“Apple... Oh, Thank Merlin, Severus! You chose Apple wood...”

Flustered color tainted the slytherin's pale cheeks and he turned slightly towards the dancing flames, looking down at them nervously.

“I take it that you've... heard... of this ritual?”

“Hermione gave a book once. You had invited me to join you for the first time and I didn't know what to expect. I learned about the variations to the ceremony you always perform in memory of your mother then. I've been dreaming about this for a long time, Severus. I've been praying so hard for this to happen...”

“I know. I didn't realize. I'm so sorry, Harry...”

The warm hand that curled around his bony shoulder at that second had him swallowing the rest of his words down, utterly unable to continue. He shivered, despite the heat coming off the fire, and was forced to bring his palms upwards, using them to rub briskly along the length of his thin arms in a bid to stop his shameful shaking before it became openly visible.

“There's no need to apologize, Severus. I could have spoken up, but I didn't. I was afraid too, you know?. I understand exactly how tempting it is to let everything be and never take the risk of losing what we already have... I'm more at fault here than you ever were, because I could see what was happening but lacked the courage to confront it”

When the boy's hand slithered around the top of his arm to curve along his chest and pull him slightly backwards, Severus allowed himself to surrender to the motion. His whole back became... nestled... against Harry's broad chest and he could feel the accelerated pounding of his companion's heartbeat hammering the left side of his own back. His whole upper body was being rocked by the rhythmic swaying produced by the boy's rapid breathing and the warmth that emanated from that slightly small and athletic frame was seeping into his body through two layers of heavy winter robes.

“You tried to kiss me last Friday, didn't you?. I could have sworn that you...”

“Yes. But then you panicked and I lost my nerve. I've been wanting to explain things to you all week but... you've been blocking me off”

He could feel every single one of those syllables sink into the skin at the back of his neck like a soft puff of slightly warmed air. It was so strangely soothing, so intimate an act that it settled his jittery nerves and eased the deep sense of terror that was trying to get hold of his agitated senses.

“I've been trying to gather my own courage. Thinking about things that I assumed were well beyond my reach. It's been many years since I gave love up for lost, Harry.”

A gloved palm settled over his robe-covered heart, like a shield meant to protect it, and his dark eyes closed with sheer nerves. A sudden gust of wind shook his long hair loose, forcing it against his pale face like silk ropes trying to lash him. The flames rose steadily right in front of him, crackling so strongly over the howling wind that it was as if the fire had a voice and was screaming loudly at the cold air to leave them both alone. To abandon this one couple into its care. To relent and go away, blowing their dark past with it. To cleanse those touched by its light of all their fears. To heal their broken places and soothe the old wounds they carried. To push aside the nighttime shadows that had kept them both trapped into friendship for so long and allow the gentle power of sunshine just one chance to fill their souls with... hope.

“You chose apple...”

“Yes, I chose the lovers' wood. I want to embrace this life that I haven't realized we've been sharing with one another. I've been yours all along, just as you have been mine. The only thing really missing from our relationship is the label, because the rest of it... the rest of it was there from the start, wasn't it?”

Harry sighed deeply then, rubbing his gloved hand across Severus' chest in a fiercely loving gesture before turning him around, so that they both stood face to face, boot to boot, so close in front of one another that they seemed to be raising from a single, joint footprint. Silence reigned for a second as those eyes searched his own, trying to gauge the strength of his commitment to the path he had now chosen. To this thing that they'd been building in unspoken harmony for the last two years and was now being finally allowed to take it's proper shape. It wasn't friendship. No. It was... love. Pure and simple love. They were linked by a strong, heartfelt emotion. Drawn together by a patient and caring understanding of each other's needs and desires. He might had been blind to this for a long time, but Severus could now see the truth quite clearly: what they shared was alive and healthy. It was beautiful and strong. It was precious, powerful, wonderful. It was utterly undeniable...

“I believe so, yes. I've loved you awake and asleep for a while know, Severus, and I'm almost certain that I've seen you look at me every now and then with clear affection, but now I want to go even further. I want to lay claim not only to your time and mind, but also to your body. To your hopes and your plans, to your entire life. I want to be able to look you in the eyes and call you mine”

Those words coiled around his senses, bringing him a deep sense of relieved contentment. He breathed freely for the first time since Harry had interrupted his private ritual and his head turned slightly to stare down into the dancing flames.

“I want that too, Harry”

The gryffindors' smile could have lit a moonless night. Green eyes shone with a bright joy and a muscled arm coiled around his narrow waist, bringing them even closer to one another. Their hips clashed lightly and their chests aligned.

“That's the best news I've heard in a very long time...”

The sentence trailed off as Harry's lips came closer, their gazes connected and there was a single second of breathless anticipation in which their whole world became reduced to this small spot filled with grass, trees and Samhain fire. Gloved hands rose to frame his face, cupping his flushed cheeks gently while a leather-covered thumb brushed away the few wisps of long hair that were being constantly blown across his eyes by the strong October wind.

“I'm going to kiss you now, Severus, and we'll finally enter the last step in this relationship of ours. From now on we'll be together for better or for worse. There'll be no place for fear anymore. There'll be only us, and we already know how well we work together. Things will be the same, but better. They'll finally be... complete”

A single heartbeat pounded against his ribcage as Harry allowed those softly whispered words to sink into their minds. Then the gryffindor stood up on tiptoes, bringing their faces even closer and allowing their breaths to mingle for the first time. Cold, soft lips touched his own with delicate devotion. The caress settled against his mouth gently, so gently, like the brief touch of a butterfly's wings over a fragile flower-petal. Warmth flowed between their joined lips and sank slowly beneath their skin, burrowing under blood and muscle, seeking their hearts. Their souls. Touching them completely.

Severus gasped in startled response to the beauty of the kiss and Harry's tongue took the opportunity to breach him with exquisite tenderness. His lips trembled as they opened even further, allowing this loving invasion with instinctive, aching greed. He wanted more of this unfurling passion, wanted to continue exploring the silky heat of Harry's mouth and feel his heart grow heavy with desire. He wanted to feel breathless, dizzy, on fire. He wanted to remain for evermore within the circle of these strong arms that had the power of making him feel finally welcome and at home. This was the place he'd spent his entire lifetime searching for. The one instant he'd wanted to experience since he'd first understood what the meaning of the word love actually entailed. These were the emotions he'd chased and lost sight off, so long ago. This was... everything he'd ever dreamed. Everything he'd ever craved. Everything he'd ever wanted to posses...

When lack of air became an issue they had no other option but to pull slightly apart and stare at one another with a sort of dazed wonder. Harry's face was flushed primrose pink and his eyes glittered like polished emeralds in the light of the fire. Samhain would never be the same from this night on. It would never again become a moment filled with the pained remembrance of those who embraced death too soon, leaving him behind. Alone... Samhain will now forever mark the instant when his life finally turned around for the better. I'll become the special night when he'd found his greatest treasure, his lifelong companion, his Harry...

“I believe it's time to perform this ritual of yours and head back home, Severus. I can think of at least a hundred things I'd rather be doing instead of freezing my bones in the forbidden Forest...”

Shocked laughter burst from the slytherin's lips in response to that thoroughly indelicate remark and he shook his head in disconcerted reaction.

“You are so impatient... I can't understand how you managed to cope with my obliviousness for two whole years.”

“I told you that already: I was afraid, too. I've been worried out of my mind this past week, thinking that you were cutting me off completely. When you failed to invite me to your Remembrance fire I dug out Hermione's book, trying to figure out what else you could be planning that would require you to search among the bushes for fallen branches. Divination was out of the question, so it could only be a Repudiation of Fear... I saw the Hawthorn, but I didn't recognize the Apple straight away. I've been praying non-stop for it not to be Cedar, I don't know what I'd have done if you've chosen the Death wood to deal with our situation. Walking away from you isn't something I could have done easily. It would have broken me, Severus. It would have plunged me into darkness...”

Severus' arms coiled around the gryffindor almost of their own volition and pulled the other man closer, until that head of messy-dark curls rested securely against his chest. Long, potion-tainted fingers buried themselves into the silky mass of inky colored hair, playing with the soft locks soothingly.

“All darkness is now behind us, Harry. It can't touch us anymore. It can't reach us and, even if it could, we'll be facing it together.”

Silence settled between them as they continued to embrace for a while longer, until the night grew too cold to linger out comfortably. Stepping gently aside, Severus dug out the small piece of parchment where he'd written his worst fear and was shocked to see his companion do exactly the same.

“I see you came prepared...”

Harry shrugged casually.

“I wanted to share your fire, no matter which wood you used to build it. I wanted to be a part of the moment when you freed yourself from whatever it is that scares you the most. I wanted to be here, claiming a small part of this ritual for myself, too. I needed to make this night ours, even if you decided to make it our last.”

Intense emotion burned his dark eyes and he had to look away for just a second. His thoughts were a tangled web of half-formed hopes, bright memories and the awareness that this instant would be forever etched on his soul like an indelible brand. His hand clenched around the small parchment that had brought him here and his voice rose steady and utterly certain from the very depths of his being:

“I've brought Samhain fire to life on this night of untold power to remove the taint of crushing fear from my scarred, terrified heart. I've built flames of Hawthorn for protection and Apple for healing and love. I'm invoking every Hallow to this blaze, calling on them to witnesses me cast all terror away.”

His fingers unfurled one by one, as if in slow motion, and the small piece of parchment hovered in the middle of his palm for a single second before falling down, into the voracious fire, like a fragile snowflake. His dark eyes watched the white paper curl around the edges and then blacken. Melting ink ran, like ebony tears, down the disintegrating note before being devoured by the hungry flames in a shower of crackling sparks. He watched it all in silence, smiling contentedly when a similar piece of stationary joined his own, a few hastily scrawled dark lines that he couldn't properly read flashed across his vision only a second before they too were ferociously consumed.

“Fear shall no longer keep us from conquering our dreams. I was enthralled to terror once, but I'm a slave no longer. I've let fear burn and now I am free...”

His voice faltered on the last word of the ritual as the wind around them grew colder. His frame shivered so much that Harry came closer and embraced him, holding tightly onto him. His Samhain fire rose steadily upwards, as if trying to reach him. Huge orange flames curled around the branches of wood that he'd so painstakingly collected in the last few days, consuming them voraciously. Thick smoke began to rise steadily towards the starry skies, waving around them both on it's way up, like a ghostly piece of string charged with the task of twining them together in magical harmony for all eternity and he felt the liberating touch of Samhain's magic touch his very soul for a single second before it left him once again.

“It is done” He whispered, gazing down into the now empty row of charred stones that he'd used to contain his blaze. Harry's arms tightened around him then, and he was certainly glad for the reminder that he wasn't here alone. He'd never be alone again. Not even on this night.

He bent down to study the stones with careful attention, using his wand to gently levitate the rocks aside in search for the perfect ember to carry back home. He was still looking when he felt a tapping on his shoulder and turned around to look questioningly at Harry.

“I think we should take that one” The boy told him, pointing to a dying little thing that didn't look all that promising. He eyed it with puzzlement, struggling to understand the reason behind the gryffindor's poor choice.

“Why?” He questioned, unable to take his eyes off the thing, now that it had been pointed out to him.

“Because it is like us, isn't it? It looks as if it'll never make it. But I bet it'll turn out to be strong enough”

The words sunk into his mind as he knelt there, dark eyes fixed on that ember thoughtfully. It took him only a few seconds to decide that it was true. They deserved an ember that started out like a spark and refused to be extinguished by foreign force. They deserved the kind of light that held the potential to turn into a fierce blaze that no power could deny.

“I think you are right, Harry. We'll bring the little one home and watch it grow into a strong, powerful fire, just like our friendship did. We'll have heat and hope and family... That's everything we need to survive the coming winter. Spring should come soon enough and, when it does, we'll return here for Beltane and celebrate our life together with a brand new fire built exactly like this one. We'll bring Hawthorn for protection and Apple wood for love...”

 

The end.