Protect Thy Heaven.

[pekeleke]

Title: Protect Thy Heaven.

Author: pekeleke

Other pairings/threesome: Background Ron/Hermione.

Rating: N-17

Word count: 16,573

Warning(s): None.

Prompt: Sign-up #5, prompt 1: A fic for this picture with the stipulation that it not be an 'I dream of Jeanie' parody, or the like!!!!

Summary: Some say Heaven is a place on Earth, a sanctuary that can only be found in the arms of their beloved. Harry Potter is the kind of man who'd risk his very sanity to protect his heaven...

Beta(s): Special thanks to both Accioslash and Badgerlady for their beta work on this piece. They've courageously saved us all from my bad punctuation. ;)

A/N: Written for the Secret Snarry Swap 2012, as a gift for phoenixcharm180
 

Protect Thy Heaven.

Some say love.... it is a river, that drowns the tender reed
Some say love... it is a razor, that leaves your soul to bleed
Some say love... it is a hunger, an endless, aching need
I say love... it is a flower, and you its only seed...

                                                                                                -The Rose by Bette Midler

*****

By the time Severus Snape recovered enough to be discharged from hospital, after the end of the war, our world had already changed into the kind of place that is genuinely willing to embrace him. Yet he never really notices our constant attempts to reach out to him.

He's grown so used to work behind the scenes that he doesn't remember how to walk in the light anymore and tenaciously attempts to remain hidden behind the bitter mask he's always worn. Everything is different now, though, and his efforts are being wasted in most cases. I'm able to see him in a way that I never did before and what I'm finding fills me with a deep sense of guilt for every squandered opportunity to both learn from him and show him the respect he'd always deserved.

But the past cannot be changed and now I'm left trying to address it as best I can. Trying to... move past it and make some kind of reparation to this courageous man who always, always, had my back. He's refusing to even acknowledge me any more and the truth is that I can't really blame him for his attitude. I can't believe how blind I've been when it comes to him. I looked so hard at Snape all these years that I simply failed to see... Severus.

I spent my eighth year at Hogwarts hovering around the infirmary in a sort of repentant pilgrimage to his bedside. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was for misjudging him. I wanted to ask him questions about my mother. I wanted to make sure that he didn't die, because I had lost enough role models already and I couldn't bear to lose another one...

I was only ever allowed near him when he was still unconscious or, once he started to recover, any time I managed to get past Madam Pomfrey's stern presence, underneath my Invisibility Cloak. I used to sit beside him whenever I couldn't sleep, and found out all about the awful nightmares that plagued him. The more I learned about him, the more I wanted to discover and, by the time I finished my last year, I already knew that I was going to return to him. I was going to find a way to reach him, for there was something about this dark-haired man that drew me like a moth. I ended up leaving before he was even able to walk from bed to bathroom and returned as a professor two years later, just as he finally allowed Minerva to convince him that she genuinely needs him to teach potions and become her trusted second-in-command.

The time I spent away from him allowed me to discover something rather shocking about myself. For all that I do crave love and affection, I can't actually stand dealing with the blind devotion showered over me by this world that wants to adore me. I can't bear the idea of surrendering myself to anyone who wants to place me on a pedestal and be grateful for the chance. I want the kind of life where I'm nobody's hero. I want to be... just Harry.

So I came back here, to this place where I first felt the delicate stirrings of a wide-eyed longing for something that I didn't even understand back then, and discovered that those feelings were still there. I seem to have developed an incurable weakness for this harsh man who cannot even see me and, with every passing day, I fall more and more deeply under his thrall.

There's a problem with that, though, an insurmountable one, for Severus Snape hasn't changed the smallest bit in all this time. He remains aloof, scornful, insistently playing his beguiling games of smoke and mirrors, while carrying out all of his good deeds behind everyone's back. He brews free potions for the war orphanage, takes a rather personal role in the post-war lives of his former Slytherins, tries to keep a very close eye out for school bullies and remains faithful, in general, to the principles that he's always embraced: he is that protector in the shadows who will always look out for Hogwarts' students, even though very few of them will ever know he's there...

His life is also the same; it remains lonely and mostly silent, devoid of either love or friendship: devoted to quiet solitude. He smiles only into his books and never, ever, dates. That wouldn't be quite so awful if he weren't convinced that no one is actually suffering because of his decision to remain aloof. He believes himself to be unlovable. Shies away from gentle contact and responds with defensive derision whenever I attempt to come anywhere near him. He is convinced that I seek to mock him, somehow: avenge myself for all the petty clashes that we had during my school years, and I don't really know how to approach him. How to tell him that I... I've been charmed by the finest man I've ever known to the point where I'm now unable to imagine that I'd be in possession of a whole heart if I ever have to rip him away from it. I'm in love with the wonderful creature I can glimpse under the cracks of his armour and, whenever he sneers at my overtures of friendship, whenever he glares and accuses me of trying to trick him in order to humiliate him for his past faults, I shatter and grieve anew. I fear that I won't be able to find happiness if we continue to remain estranged, and tremble in terrified rejection of the bleak future that I see extending before me, like a never-ending penance, for the blindness of my childhood.
He is wrong about me, about what I want, about how far I'm willing to go for him, but he doesn't see it that way, and my fragile hopes for a life that might hold the kind of loving relationship that fills my nightly dreams dim with every passing day.

He is so used to being unacknowledged that he gapes when I declare that he deserves the Order of Merlin. His face pales when he reads the interview I agreed to give to the Prophet and he crumples the whole paper violently, before looking straight at me with the kind of viciousness that could make a bloodthirsty Chimera freeze on the spot.
“What sort of drivel is this, Potter? Do you really think that anyone cares whether I was loyal to Albus or not? I'm the Death Eater who got away. Trust me, there's no one out there really interested in hearing the whys or hows of it. Not even if the story comes from you!”

He storms out of the staff room, leaving the rest of us staring at his retreating back with frustration. My hands curl into a pair of impotent fists out of sheer powerlessness and I wish to Merlin I knew the kind of words that might, just might, allow me to finally reach this stubborn, wounded creature...

Minerva seats herself beside me, covers both my fists with the comforting warmth of her own palms and whispers very quietly.
“You've got to be patient with him, Harry. Severus needs some time to recover from the damage of the war.”

I shake off her comforting touch and run my hands through my hair with frustrated anger.
“More time? How much more time, Minerva? It's been almost three years since the end of the war and he's still convinced that we all hate him! I don't see how giving him more space to entrench himself in those kinds of delusions will help him heal!”

“He was closer to Voldermort than anyone else right at the end and he's seen things, done things, that have harmed him deeply, Harry. He is dealing with the kind of dark demons that none of us can even begin to imagine, because none of us were ever quite that close to the Dark Lord. He needs to deal with our lack of trust, too. With the fact that we fell for Albus' trick so easily and labelled him a traitor. I believe he's been feeling more than little betrayed for a long time now and, circumstances being what they were, he couldn't even retaliate in any way, couldn't safely defend himself, couldn't... rant. There must be a lot of resentment in his heart, a lot of hurt to overcome... He needs time to find himself once more and adjust to living a life devoid of both duty and danger. He needs time to find closure and that's such a very hard thing to find that he might very well need far longer than you are willing to wait. If you can't give him patience then you must give him up. Trust me on this, Harry, rushing Severus Snape has never done much good to anyone who tried it.”

Minerva tries her best but she doesn't understand. My frustration with the situation doesn't come from my supposed unwillingness to wait for Severus. It comes from the awareness that I'm invisible to him, simply nonexistent. I want so much to be a part of whatever it is that is happening in his life that my obvious inability to reach him is driving me spare...

By the time the announcement comes that my campaign on his behalf has borne fruit and he is to be awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class, he hasn't yet managed to find that frankly elusive closure of his. He sneers down at his congratulatory letter, casts an Incendio on his invitation and doesn't bother attending the ceremony.

I collect his well-deserved honour but can't bring myself to thank anyone on his behalf. I stand on that podium, scrutinize the packed ballroom with an increasingly sorrow-filled gaze and realize, to my utmost dismay, that when it comes to this at least, he's probably correct: he's got no one to thank for anything. No one at all...

* * * * *

He's so used to being sought out only for business that he doesn't even open his door fully the first time I knock on it. He peeks out from behind the ancient looking shield of thick wood that bars unwanted visitors from entering his chambers and stares silently at me through the small gap that he's created between himself and the door jamb. There's a moment of silence as I try to hide my dismay at his lack of welcome and a frown begins to mar his narrow features.

“What do you want, Potter? If it's a potion you need, leave a note on my office door. If it's so urgent that it can't wait until morning, then chances are that Madam Pomfrey already has it in her stores. Either way, there's no need for you to stand there like a frightened kitten. It's rather late and I've got no time to waste on a ridiculous staring contest with a former student of mine.”

“Current colleague, Professor. It's been years since I was your student. I went away, became a DADA Master and accepted a position to teach alongside you. I've been your equal for a while now and your insistence on avoiding me like the plague is getting a bit old, don't you think? I'm convinced that you never really hated me and I... I was damned wrong about you, all right? I'm sure we are both entitled to leave the past behind. We work here together and it isn't very mature of us to keep at each other's throat when there's no actual reason for that. I thought we could... talk. Spend this Friday evening together and maybe even share a drink or two, see if we can become friends or something. I didn't come empty-handed and I'm willing to share...”

My hands curl even more rigidly around the bottle of Firewhisky that I spent more than an hour trying to select when his eyes widen with horror.
“What have you done to yourself, child? What sort of... request... could necessitate outright bribery to secure my cooperation?”

“This is no bribery, Severus. This is just me standing here, at your door, with the hope that you might open it to me.”

He looks so confused then that I'd feel like laughing if the discouraging obliviousness of his reaction didn't feel like a slap to my face.
“Why?” He asks, and the fact that he needs to voice such a question is probably the most direct hint I'll ever receive about the kind of emotional abuse that he has endured during his lifetime. Neglect has a way of shining between the cracks of even the strongest of all masks and his has been slowly breaking apart since the end of the war.

“Why not?” I can tell immediately that my response is too flippant. It's perceived as the kind of outright challenge that spurns him into growling his answer rather viciously:

“Because you are you!”

* * * * *

The sound of his door closing in my face every Friday from then on becomes a kind of joke throughout all of Hogwarts. I knock on his door each week and attempt to find the right words to entice him into allowing me entry, only to fail miserably every time. The echo of his door banging shut travels fast in the dungeons' twisting corridors and I return to my own chambers with renewed dejection.

We become trapped playing a game in which the more we play the more firmly we are stuck to our original positions. I can't manage to make him understand that I'm not doing this out of a stubborn desire to see which one of us will back off first, and he grows colder with each passing week, virulently resenting what he sees as obstinate insistence.

I never gain entry into his rooms and he... he never allows himself to let go of the past. We can't find a way out of this damaging spiral of misunderstanding and suspicions on his part. And I'm too afraid to attack them with the truth of my intentions because doing so would require exposing my own fragility. For the first time in my life I'm too afraid to risk everything and the end result is unrelenting and soul-destroying heartbreak...

Weeks turn into months before I'm desperate enough to go any further. I keep looking right at him, and the more I look the more fiercely I learn to love him. I adore the man who hides beneath his armour. The man so few can see. The man who is so afraid of showing his own weaknesses that he is virtually locking himself away, behind a shield of foul temper and derisive misanthropy.

I begin to crave his presence on the weekends and invent a hundred excuses to avoid leaving the castle in the hopes of seeing him around. I stalk the corridors at night whenever he patrols them and hover rather obviously around the dungeons as often as I can make up excuses to do so. But his irritatingly retiring nature repeatedly frustrates my own increasing need for further contact and soon I realize that I'm never going to get enough of him like this. I won't be able to... fill... my need for him unless I manage to move us forward, and the idea of actually approaching him for a date settles inside my mind, refusing to let go.

My friends think that I'm crazy, of course. They urge me to look around and settle for someone else. Someone younger, nicer, more attractive. For a while this is all Ron can talk to me about, and the fact that I can't even explain why it is that I only want Severus doesn't help.

“I don't know why in the bloody hell I love him, Ron, I just do! I'm pretty certain that if I could settle for anybody else I would have done so already. Do you think I like feeling this fucking miserable all the time, eh? I crave that man like the air I need to breathe and he doesn't even see me, for Merlin's sake! There's nothing I can do about any of this. I want him. HIM, not whoever else might be out there that you think is a million times better for me! I'm a one-love-only sort of man and my heart has chosen already. I don't want anyone else. I wish I did...”

When I finally explode in the middle of one of Molly's dinners everyone falls silent and there's a moment of utter shock as they all digest the fact that I'm pretty much doomed. Ron starts laughing hysterically and everyone follows his example after a second or two. I join them in their mirth, of course. I laugh at my own stupidity while telling myself firmly that my feelings aren't going to be the end of me. They are the most important part of who I am. They are all worth it. They have to be, for they have all been born from a genuine desire to celebrate the man my heart adores and that could never be a waste of energy. How could it?

By the time I finally approach him, I discover that Severus is so used to being thoroughly ignored that he becomes even more suspicious when I first invite him out. My plan of trying to break the impasse between us through typical Gryffindor boldness goes down in flames, just like all the others.

“Out? In public?” He snorts darkly. “You've just lost that bet, Potter!”

My heart shrivels when he leaves the castle that same evening with the kind of look in his eyes that allows me to guess that he won't return before daybreak. I spend the night glued to my window, praying to every God whose name I can remember for him to have just gone out for a drink. But he hasn't. I know that he hasn't and there's nothing I can do but remain here, allowing my heart to break a little bit more with every passing hour.

When he finally returns the sun has already begun to bathe the dewy grass with golden coloured beauty and his careful stride, the dishevelled state of his long hair and the fact that his rigidly formal robes are missing a few buttons here and there tell the kind of graphic story that robs my breath away and fills my eyes with impotent tears. I become a grief-stricken victim of the kind of loss that can destroy a man's sanity and I shatter there and then, like a fragile glass container that can't cope with this harsh hit.

I rip myself hastily away from the window lest he lift his pale face and sees me here. There's a truly unendurable bitterness threatening to choke me as I stumble backwards against my disorganized desk. I throw everything on it down to the floor in a fit of violent rage, but feel next to no comfort in the sound that my ink bottle makes as it smashes against the unyielding granite and disintegrates, as all delicate things do when facing unmovable stone. Severus is my own personal monolith, he is the wall against which I shatter again and again and again...

I realize at that moment how very wrong I've been about my feelings all along. They might be worth it, in and of themselves, but that won't prevent them from becoming the artifices of my eventual destruction. I know this now, but I can't bring myself to abandon these emotions that I treasure. I refuse to teach myself to hate him just because he can't bring himself to see me. I won't allow these feelings to turn into the unthinkable enmity of the scorned. I can't do that to myself. I don't want to. My love for Severus Snape is precious to me. It's the only thing of real value that I have ever possessed beyond the comforting warmth of friendship. These soul-deep emotions that make my heart pound whenever I'm in his presence are my reason for living. The one truth that I won't be able to ever deny, no matter how much it hurts me...

* * * * *

Time becomes an endless loop of trying to come near him but failing abysmally at it and I turn into a joke, a secret everyone knows about. A lovelorn professor who can't see how pathetic he's become in the eyes of all others. A man holding out for miracles. A fool...

I've grown so used to the hopelessness of loving him only in my dreams that I immediately understand the danger of the gift George gives me for my birthday. He comes late and stays late, playing deaf to everyone's ribbing for having failed to buy me a present. I think nothing of it when he stays after all the others have left, using the excuse that they are all family people and we both are still cursed by singledom. His comment hurts when I hear it but I know that, if there is anyone among my friends who really understands how empty my life feels without Severus in it, then it has to be this wounded remaining half of a former pair of twins.

“I've thought long and hard about what I'm about to do here, Harry. I've seen you grow hollow-eyed and deeply unhappy these past years and I hate it. I know you love Snape and I wish, for your own sake, that you didn't feel that way. I'd honestly give you a love potion and shove you in the path of someone who could make you happy, if I had the smallest hope of that working out, but... you can actually fight Imperius, Harry. I'm genuinely convinced that nothing will enthrall you against your will. So, instead of giving you a better alternative to love, I've decided to grant you a respite from the bleakness of your current situation. I'm going to gift you a little piece of heaven, my friend, but you must promise me in return never to abuse it."

I'm a Gryffindor who thrives on receiving precisely these kind of warnings, so his words catch my attention almost at once. Curiosity courses through my veins as he pulls out a shrunken item from his robe pocket. Once his Finite is cast, it turns out that he is talking about an ancient looking oil lamp that seems to have been made out of solid gold. I frown at it, utterly puzzled, for although it does look rather nice as a decoration I can't see how anyone could possibly abuse something so... useless.

“This is your piece of heaven? You're joking, right?”

His sudden bark of laughter has the jarring quality of true heartbreak and I look into his face with the sudden awareness that there must be something more to this lamp than meets the eye. George might have become the rather eccentric half of a formerly promising pair of businessmen, but he's still a bloody genius in his own right when he wants to be.

“I developed this little gem right after the war. I missed Fred so much that I felt I couldn't breathe... I was lost and lonely and I decided that death didn't have the right to rob me of my own brother, so I became obsessed with the idea that those we love remain with us, locked in our hearts, for all eternity. There had to be a way to bring them back out, to turn our memories of them into something far more real, more tangible than a mere thought. I wanted to bring Fred back to life but that's just... not possible... so I settled for the next best thing. I found a way to merge the basic theory behind the Mirror of Erised into a plain and simple summoning spell that allowed me to create a sort of... mirage.

"When you place a single drop of your own blood in the spout of this lamp, it uses it to read your heart's greatest desire and it creates a magical copy of whoever you love the most. This... copy... responds to your deepest wishes, making it very easy for you to control. You'll be able to manipulate it, like a puppeteer does with a puppet, because it was conjured for the sole purpose of allowing you to turn whatever dreams of love you hold into reality.”

My eyes open wide and I stare down at the lamp with a kind of frightened trepidation.
“What? But that's just... It's twisted, George! The Mirror of Erised turns people mad!”

“I tried telling myself that, but I was desperate! I was floundering without Fred and I needed a respite. I wanted to have him back for even a single second longer and I didn't much care if his return was due to a lie of my own creation or not. I couldn't wait for some kind of impossible miracle to raise him from his grave... miracles don't happen in real life, Harry! Magic is much more reliable.
“I'm not going to lie to you: I did lose myself to the power of my visions in the beginning. It was touch and go there for a while, but now things are much better. I was still experimenting with a very ancient enchantment that feeds on mentally snaring its victims. I was desperate and the magic recognized it, but I was never as strong as I know you to be, Harry. Furthermore, I realized what my biggest mistake was with my first prototype and I've fixed it, so that this is now virtually harmless. The mirror gives you a true image of your heart's desire and uses the power of your own longing for it to convince you that your visions are the truth, but this lamp won't be able to do that. It can't! I've made it impossible for it to do so.”

He grabs the thing from the table and turns it slightly around so that I can see the beautifully etched legend branded onto the delicately curved belly of the lamp.

- All days are night to see till I see thee,
And night bright days, when dreams do show thee me... -

“It's written right here, just in case. This lamp will show you a beautiful sort of dream while you are awake, but that doesn't mean it won't still be a fantasy. A moment that isn't real. A mirage. It'll produce for you a copy of Severus that will be true to the man in every way except for one. It'll choose some particular detail about the original's physical appearance that you strongly associate with him and change it, in so jarring a way that you'll always be visually reminded of the fact that what you see isn't real.

“You'll get to have the man you are pining away for right here, with you, every now and then, Harry. What I offer you isn't really a substitute for Severus, of course, but you'll find a little peace through the power of this lamp, my friend, and that's what I want to give you. You can touch him, speak to him and even have him love you back, if that's what you truly desire. And the best part of it all is that you won't ever run the risk of losing yourself to the game you are playing, because you'll always be reminded of the fact that the... let's call it Jinn, shall we?... The Jinn that your blood will call forth won't be the real Severus. It'll just be... a purposely flawed version of him. A small, innocent, daydream. A tool conjured to give you momentary relief. A fleeting piece of heaven...”

* * * * *

I'm a lonely, unlucky, man in love... It's virtually impossible for me not to become intrigued by the whole concept, but my one previous experience with the actual inspiration for George's lamp keeps me away from it for a couple of weeks. The Mirror of Erised is linked in my mind with the worst kind of insidious poison and I... I'm afraid of becoming enthralled by whatever false promise this lamp holds within its golden depths. My life might not be as full as it could be, or as happy... but it's the only one I've got and I'm not willing to waste it on fantasies, no matter how tempting they might be.

Before I know it the third week of August has arrived and Severus suddenly announces that he's arranged an ingredient gathering trip with Leonides Urguis, the rather... irritating Potions Master whom he met last year in Greece, during a professional conference. The man keeps writing to him like some sort of... infatuated puppy... and they exchange ancient recipes for intolerably revolting concoctions that they describe to each other in stomach-churning detail. Although I was initially glad that Severus had finally opened himself to new friendships, recently I've started having second thoughts about the whole situation. I hate how he smiles whenever Urguis' owl sweeps down with a new letter. I hate how deep their friendship has become when they don't even live in the same bloody country and hardly see each other. I hate knowing that there's something that silver-tongued Greek has that I plainly lack. He is in possession of that elusive... something... that has allowed him to get past Severus' impossible defences, enabling him not only to reach out, but also connect, with the very same man who has spent a veritable eternity rejecting my overtures.

The news of this unexpected trip blindsides me so completely that I can't mind my words. I wasn't prepared for something like this and I react instinctively, accusing him rather angrily of having put our entire end-of-summer staff meetings in jeopardy by scheduling this unnecessary trip so late.

He looks startled by the attack but recovers amazingly fast, crossing his arms in front of his narrow chest and sneering coldly:
“I wasn't aware that my paltry contribution to those meetings could be considered crucial in any way. Bearing in mind that I haven't changed my syllabus in twenty years, I would have thought it understood by now that I have absolutely nothing new to contribute to them and, therefore, it should be perfectly acceptable for me to leave my voting proxy in Minerva's capable hands and dedicate my time to the far more useful goal of re-stocking my depleting cabinet for specialized ingredients in the cheapest way for the school that I could come up with. Which happens to include sacrificing my personal vacation to go and collect those ingredients myself!”

His furious remonstration makes me grit my teeth with the kind of frustration that usually ends with me spouting something truly unforgivable.
“Of course your input into these meetings is crucial, Professor! Your presence is always both welcome and required. You are our bloody Deputy Headmaster, for Merlin's sake, and I personally find it insulting that you'd dare to shirk your responsibilities here in order to indulge in a week-long tryst with your so-called friend. I can't believe you have the actual gall of using the school's economic interests as an excuse for this sort of unprofessional behaviour!”

“This offensive description of my supposed lack of integrity is rather unnecessary. I do not need to hear your groundless accusations about the legitimate nature of my reasons to do this, Professor Potter. I already have the Headmistress' permission to absent myself from the end-of-summer staff meetings. What's more: I have every right in the world to enjoy my personal vacation in whichever way gives me the most pleasure and I neither welcome, nor actually care, for your opinion on the matter!” He growls viciously in response before rising abruptly from his chair and storming out of the room with a face like thunder.

“This has gone far enough, Harry...” Minerva whispers in the eerily tense silence that follows Severus' departure and I realize then that my behaviour has been beyond unforgivable.

* * * * *

Later in the evening I knock on his door with about a million and one contrite apologies dancing on the tip of my tongue, but he doesn't even answer. It isn't until the Bloody Baron tells me that Severus decided to move his planned trip forward and has already departed that I actually realize what I've done. He won't be back for an entire week. He left before I could apologize and he's out there with a man who makes him smile with his every letter...

My whole world becomes a terrible, dreary place. I close my eyes, only to open them almost immediately when vision after vision of the man I love beyond desperation, coiled around some muscled Greek-God, bombard my distressed mind. I stare blindly at his closed door and feel... utterly empty.

After years of enduring Severus' rejections, I finally reach rock bottom at that point. I stumble back to my rooms like a drunken man. There's a hazy cloud of sorrow fogging my every thought, blunting my senses, helping me feel somehow disassociated from the pain I know I'm feeling. Severus has gone on a week-long vacation with bloody Leonides Urguis and the last words we exchanged were just... ghastly! There's a huge lump of raw fear deeply embedded in my stomach which refuses to either sink or grow out of all control and just kill me already!

The first thing I see as I enter my room is that lamp. It sits innocently in the middle of my mantelpiece, like some kind of souvenir, and I'm crazy enough right now to ignore my every misgiving regarding George's well-intentioned gift. I stand in front of it, staring at this 'little piece of heaven' for a very long time. George said it'd be safe enough to use, didn't he? And I know that man well enough to believe that he wouldn't have knowingly gifted me this, if he thought I couldn't handle it...

“Just this once...” I think to myself as my hands grab the lamp.

Placing a single drop of my blood on that golden spout takes a single flick of my wand, and in the next second there's a hazy shimmer of magic surrounding me. It feels warm, familiar, and I realize that my senses are recognizing the part of my own magic that's being used to generate the... Jinn.

A mere blink later the vision before me is startling enough to bring me right out of my funk. I bite my lip in order to avoid laughing and decide to keep this one memory safe inside my Pensieve for the rest of eternity. My gaze widens and my mouth drops as I gape at the image the lamp conjured.

A perfect replica of Severus is hovering near the ceiling of my office in the most outlandish costume I've ever seen him wear. He looks so mad that my senses reel with the unnerving idea that this... this is exactly how the real Severus would look, if he ever found himself shoved into these clothes. I realize at once that they must be the manifestation of George's safety trigger and I have to hand it to the man here, for there's no possible way for my mind to honestly believe that Severus, whom I've only ever seen dressed in unrelenting formal black, would ever wear this kind of garishly bright purple frock. The outlandish yellow belt and thick golden bracelets that complement the ridiculous outfit are so over the top that I can't even imagine a jewel-lover like Lucius Malfoy being comfortable enough to actually wear them, least of all my poor Severus...

The Jinn's dark head is covered in a turban-like yellow hat with a long, purple feather at the top and he is just hovering there, looking impatiently at me. His long eyebrows raise slightly and he crosses his thin arms in a gesture of expectancy that's so reminiscent of my own colleague that I gasp aloud in wonder. His lower body seems to have been transfigured into some sort of swirly mist that connects him to the lamp, all the better to keep the image firmly linked to the magic that produces it, and remind me at the same time of the fact that this legless entity can't possibly be a real man.

I swallow uneasily, trying to decide exactly what is it that I want to do with this conjured mirage. I can say anything I want to him and I doubt it will respond with derision. I could just open my mouth and...
“Severus, my love...”
My voice trembles as I waste this most intimate of endearments on a clear impostor, on this purple-robed stand-in for the man I really adore, on this... Jinn.

Something crumbles within me as I hear myself say those words and I honestly believe that it must have been my last hope. For I've never actually dared to address the real Severus in this manner, not to his face at least, and never, ever, while awake. I realize that I've done this, offered these particular words to this thing, because I've finally accepted that I'll never have the opportunity to say them to the real Severus. I've just crossed that thin line that tells me I've given up believing in a future that might hold an 'us'. I've finally lost the war that we've been waging since I first realized the true nature of my feelings and it seems that Severus has proven himself to be the most stubborn of the two. The most intractable...

Those depressing thoughts come to an abrupt halt when the Jinn smiles rather brightly and then exhales, as if concerned. “Are you all right, Harry? You look... sad.”

I look directly into those ebony eyes and become mesmerized by the tenderness I see so clearly written within them. I've been wishing to find myself on the receiving end of this kind of look for so long that my own eyes fill with bitter tears and I mourn for all those dreams that I'm now abandoning. The Jinn frowns and I can see my love's pale face become a worried rendition of itself. Those dark, elegant eyebrows come together and his reedy form draws nearer to me as he inclines, ever so slightly, forwards.

“Harry... What is it? What can I do? Who has dared to cause you this unhappiness?” A potion-stained hand curls around my chin and the realistic warmth that emanates from that incredibly white skin startles me. The touch is careful and gentle; it tilts my face upwards so that I have no other option but to look into those beautiful dark eyes.

A skilled thumb brushes delicately over my cheek, drying my burning tears in a single, soothing arch, and I choke with the useless desire for this to be the kind of reality that awaits me when I finally close the lamp.

“There's no need to cry, Harry. Not while I'm right here. I'll stay for as long as you want me, my love, and I'm going to help you forget whatever brought you this sorrow...”

I smile at those simple words and, even though I know they stem from the same kind of alluring temptation that the Mirror of Erised uses to reel in its victims, I don't want to stop myself from falling into their thrall. My desire to protect this wonderful mirage where Severus loves me back begins to take root with the Jinn's whispered promise. It cements deeply in my psyche by the time he floats down further and proceeds to incline ever so slowly forwards. I see passion in those eyes for the first time and that lie brings me such joy, such welcome relief from the awful chain of grief in which I've been trapped these last years, that I finally understand that this lovely feeling will be my very own downfall. For how will I ever find the strength to turn my back on this sweet bliss and return to the cold reality where my love actually despises me?

The Jinn's lips brush against mine and I don't even care about the colour of his clothes or the fact that he doesn't have legs and has to be conjured, by a drop of my own blood, out of an old oil lamp. His kiss is warm and loving, it soothes my every hurt and makes me feel once again like the boy I used to be before I ever dared to fall in love with Severus Snape. My heart flutters with a wild, exuberant, abandon for the first time in... forever... and there's nothing outside these walls that means as much to me as the lie contained within them...

* * * * *

My dark days are now over and the addictive brightness promised by this wondrous jewel of a lamp soon becomes my only focus. I've gladly surrendered my whole self to the dream I've conjured and I have not a single regret about that choice. I'm a slave to the beauty of this mirage and I feel so blessed that I could probably float on air, just like he does, if I genuinely tried it.

I have no sense of time, nor do I care for whatever might be happening outside my closed door. I forget to eat and bathe. I spend every hour of my days and nights ensconced inside my chambers, basking in the loving attention that my purple-robed Severus so generously grants me. We kiss and hug and talk for hours. He hovers by my side and offers me the kind of gentle companionship that I've been craving for years. I love his sharp-tongued wit, his quick intelligence and that shockingly realistic ability to express himself exactly in the same way I imagine the real Severus would have used, if he'd ever allowed himself to feel this comfortable with another human being.

I cheerfully abandon my hurtful reality and embrace this soothing limbo of dream-like perfection, where nothing else exists besides the two of us. I begin to smile again. I laugh now all the time. My eyes return to their former hope-filled brightness and I'm happy for the first time in years. Everything is simply perfect until my dream is shattered by a startlingly furious pounding on my door.

I frown for the first time since I conjured the Jinn and gesture for it to retreat into his lamp. My throat dries with the most awful sense of actual loss when I see him disappear and I bristle with incensed indignation at whoever it is that has dared to come here. I have no wish to be bothered with nonsense, not right now when I'm so busy! By the time I yank open my door I've built such a head of angry steam that I start growling my displeasure before I actually set eyes upon my visitor.
“You better have a good reason for disturbing me, or I swear to Merlin that I'm going to...”

My voice freezes mid-rant as my gaze finally clashes with glittering black eyes. I've grown so used to seeing Severus wearing garish purple robes that I gape with disconcertion at his formal dark attire. There's no turban atop his head and his ebony-coloured tresses flow unhindered around his pale features as he surveys my appearance with visible disgust.
“For a man who had the gall to berate me for the lack of professionalism inherent in my perfectly acceptable reasons for absenting myself from the end-of-summer staff meetings, you are displaying a truly appalling lack of interest in them yourself, Professor Potter.”

“Severus...”

I gape idiotically at him, utterly unable to reconcile this man of flesh and blood with the illusion that brings me so much joy. He crosses his arms and starts tapping one booted foot against the floor impatiently. I realize then that he's waiting for some sort of answer to his words but I... I can't really understand what he means. I can't understand why he is here. “Aren't you supposed to be on vacation?”

The tapping of his boot halts so abruptly that my senses become distracted once again and I lower my own head towards the floor.
“What are you on about, Potter? I returned three days ago!”

That claim is so ridiculous that I laugh under my breath.
“Listen, I'm sorry about all that stuff I said at the meeting. There's no need for you play a prank on me, just to get even. I'm sorry and I apologize, all right? You can go back to your ingredient gathering and I'll see you when you return for real.”

I've already started closing the door when his hand lands on the dark wood, not five inches from my widening eyes. I startle backwards instinctively and he pushes the door open with a single, forceful, shove.
“I'm going to enter these chambers whether you invite me in or not, Potter. There's something wrong with you, boy. You are spouting absolute nonsense!”

I'm so flustered by the fact that he has followed those words with actions that I stare at him dazedly. I can't believe he's actually here, in my room. For real...
I can't imagine any reason why he'd willingly enter the place I call home while being perfectly conscious that he'll have to endure my company.
“I can't be dreaming, can I? I'm sure I'm awake...” I jerk my right hand upwards, planning to pinch my left arm hard, but his surprisingly strong fingers prevent me from so much as grazing my own skin. He looks so fierce and strong and beautifully real at that moment that I can't help but desire for this strangely surreal situation to be actually... true.

“What the hell are you doing? Have you seen those nails of yours?”

His words make no sense to me until I focus on my fingers and discover that my nails have grown inexplicably long. They look dirty and unkempt; they've become jagged in places to the point that I'm now certain they'd have broken my skin if they'd managed to reach it.
“I don't understand...”

My gaze connects with his and I watch him frown at my obvious confusion. He mutters a mirroring spell and I'm suddenly able to see my own image reflected in the dark surface of his eyes. I look wild and half-maddened. My hair is longer than I've ever kept it and there's a messy beard covering my jaw that I can't recognize...

I pull away from him and turn my disbelieving gaze towards the mirror that hangs just above my fireplace, absolutely convinced that he's trying to trick me for some reason. But my eyes haven't deceived me and I'm shocked to discover that my reflection has become heartbreakingly foreign to me. It shows a sickeningly thin stranger with an ashen face and feverish emerald eyes staring straight at me with increasingly growing horror.

“What?...” I try touching my tangled hair and its grimy consistency brings new shock to my reeling senses. I smell like something left forgotten in a pantry for the season and my clothes are crumpled, ruined by a myriad of spots that I haven't bothered to vanish in only Merlin knows how long... “What day is it, Severus?”

“It's the twenty ninth of August, Potter. You've failed to attend every single staff meeting this week and Minerva tells me she hasn't seen your hide in the past twelve days.”

“Twelve days?” Now my horror can't be disguised and he catches my instinctive look in the lamp's direction. His attention turns towards it and I panic. I can't let him take it away. I need it! It's really perfectly harmless, this was just... my own mistake for not remembering to set some sort of alarm to remind myself of those bloody meetings. I've been enjoying my vacation, for Godric's sake! I've got a right to do whatever I like when I'm not teaching... If I don't want to bother bathing for a few days, that's my own business, isn't it?

“I've been so busy lately that I forgot about them. I... I'll go see Minerva tomorrow and apologize.”

A dark eyebrow rises incredulously and those black eyes rake the room with clear distaste.
“You've forgotten to eat for twelve days? You've forgotten your weekly Quidditch practice with Rolanda? You've forgotten that you promised to help Hagrid round up the thestral foals before the students return? Do you really consider me foolish enough to believe that you've just forgotten to shower, shave and change out of your dirty clothes for two weeks in a row? What the hell is going on here, Potter?”

I bristle at his attempt to fake a concern that he's never bothered to show me before. My eyes harden, my shoulders square and my voice acquires the very qualities of ice when I answer him sharply.
“You are welcome to believe whatever you see fit. It's no business of yours whether I bathe or not. I'm an adult and I'm on my own time until the children come back. I'll be grateful to you if you could just... go away. I've been living in heaven for the last twelve days, Professor, and I'm eager to return there and spend what little is left of my vacation in the kind of peaceful contentment that I've never so far found in your company!”

He's so predictable whenever his temper gets the better of him that I feel like laughing as he turns sharply around and walks out of my chambers in offended indignation. The loud bang of my door as he storms out of the room shakes the pictures on the wall and I sigh tiredly. My eyes search their own reflection on the mirror once again and a shiver of deep fear coils along my spine, like the cold caress of a ghost.

“I've got to be more careful...” I whisper hoarsely to myself and then turn to stare longingly towards my golden lamp. I'd give my right arm right now to have the opportunity to call forth my lovely Jinn and let him soothe the anxiety that Severus' unexpected visit has provoked within me, but I'm too wary. I've become so easily enthralled by the power of the lamp that I realize I've got to find a way to set small alarms to remind myself of the fact that there's a real world that still expects certain things from me.

If I start failing in my duties, then someone might come sniffing around. Someone far more interested in staying than the Deputy Headmaster, someone like Hermione... she'll take my Jinn away from me if she ever finds out that it exists, and then... Then I'll be forever condemned to my former loneliness and I can't go back to that now. I won't go back to that. I've got to control myself better and find a way to convince everyone that there's nothing going on here. It's the only way to protect my beautiful piece of heaven...

* * * * *

Severus is perverse... I spent years trailing behind him like a little lovelorn pup and he never bothered to give me the time of day. Now that I've got no desire to be the focus of his attention he seems to have become obsessed with questioning my every move.

I storm out of the Great Hall in a huff of sheer annoyance after the third time this evening that he's asked me why exactly it is that I've stopped correcting the student's homework in my office as I used to do before. He's not buying my explanation that I've discovered that correcting essays in my own chambers is far more relaxing. There's something I'm not doing right when it comes to convincing him that there's nothing wrong with me, and the fact that he's suspicious is unnerving me no end. He is one of the most observant men I've ever met. He was a spy for twenty years and a damned good one, at that. If there's anyone around who poses a direct threat to my precious secret, then that person is Severus.

I can't understand why he is so suddenly interested in my habits when he never bothered with any of that before. His constant attention is driving me spare. It frightens me into believing that he knows about my Jinn somehow. It keeps me awake at night and keeps my heart hovering between hope and despair, for I've felt like this before. I've felt exactly like this for long enough to know that going back to hoping that he'll notice me in a romantic way is simply pointless. This temporary interest of his will wane eventually and then I'll be left hopeless and broken-hearted once again.

He doesn't love me. He'll never love me, and I won't relinquish my beautiful dreams for a painful second trip down the soul-destroying lane of holding out for the impossible miracle of having him return my feelings. I'm never going back to becoming the ridiculous blind fool I used to be. George was definitely right in everything that he told me: miracles don't happen in real life. Magic is much more reliable...

* * * * *

October turns into November and the arrival of the properly cold weather gives far more strength to my increasingly frequent excuses to remain locked in my chambers.
Hermione and Ron both dislike my recently developed reluctance to go out as often as I used to, but they are busy with their growing family and things slowly become blissfully easier. Hagrid doesn't like to push me whenever I tell him that I'm busy and I make sure to keep Rolanda and Minerva happy enough with me.

Only Severus raises a dark eyebrow every time I claim to be too busy to join them all for a card game in the staff room or explain that I have a banging headache to get out of the staff's monthly get-together. I've been so careful these past weeks that it galls me to realize that he still isn't convinced by my misdirection. He has begun observing me when he thinks I'm not looking. Or maybe he does it on purpose, trying to trick me into a panicked reaction that would give away my secret. He's a Slytherin, after all; I'd be an idiot to trust either his intentions or actions. I can't let my guard down around him. If he's certain that I'm lying then he's out to find more and that... that I can't allow. I'm protecting what pitifully little I own that makes me happy and he has no right to push me like this. Not when he doesn't really care.

I push those worrying thoughts to the back of my head and make a conscious effort to smile brightly as I turn into the corridor that houses my chambers. My pace picks up with my eagerness to be in the presence of my wonderfully loving Jinn and it isn't until I've reached my door that I realize there's someone standing in the shadows right beside it.

“It's incredible how eagerly you've embraced a life of... solitude, Professor Potter.”

Severus' beautiful voice fills me with equal amounts of desire and desperation. I jerk away from my door and focus on his pale face as he steps into the orange-tinged light of the torches. It always shocks me to see his signature dark robes, the buttoned up frigidity of his posture, the impervious blankness of his hard expression, his unadorned head... these are the things that distinguish him from my lamp's flawed mirage. These have become the things I hate most about him, for without them he'd be my gentle Jinn. Without them, I'd have no dream to protect. Without them, he'd be fiercely in love with me for real...

“I thought you would approve, Professor Snape. Isn't solitude the choice that you, yourself, have made?”

His thin lips press together ever so slightly and I know that my bitter dig has hit home.
“My solitude is a product of necessity, Potter. There are options open to you that have never been offered to me. You are way too young to bury yourself inside your chambers like this. Why don't you go out with your friends anymore?”

“Most of my friends are married by now. Playing babysitter for their single school chum isn't their priority any longer and that's exactly as it should be. Family is a treasure that requires constant nurturing and those blessed with such a gift should devote themselves to it, wouldn't you agree?”

For some reason my words manage to make him uncomfortable and he turns his face away, fixing those lovely dark eyes on the shadowy corner at the other end of the corridor. I study his profile with the kind of avid thirst that I haven't allowed myself to show in ages and realize that unlike my Jinn, who remains forever unchanged, Severus has lost weight. There are huge, dark circles under his eyes and he looks worn-out, fragile...
“Isn't it a bit early in the season for you to have already started chain-brewing flu remedies past midnight?” My mouth spouts out the question before I have time to rein it in and his head jerks abruptly back towards me.

“What?”

I flush like a tomato and try to step away but his hand shoots out towards me, encircling my wrist. I can't remember another time, except his one disastrous visit to my rooms, when he has willingly touched me before and my eyes widen with unrestrained desire as soon as my brain registers the fact that this touch is real. It's his own and it's willing. It's not the conjured affection of a magical trick, no matter how much more loving than this that one might feel...

“What did you just say, Potter?”

I swallow nervously, attempting to think my way out of my ridiculous faux-pas, before deciding that it's already too late to backpedal, anyway.
“I... you look tired, Severus. Nowadays you only ever look like this whenever you start chain-brewing for the Infirmary, like you usually do around a week before the Christmas break each year.”

He looks shocked. Unbalanced. Disarmed.
“You know this about me?”

I smile a little bitterly and pull my wrist forcibly away from his burning touch, lest he notices my racing pulse and wonders why it's pounding.
“I know many things about you, Professor.”

His marred throat contracts and I watch in fascination as his Adam's apple bobs wildly along that graceful column, betraying uncharacteristic nervousness.
“You used to visit me every Friday without fail, Potter.”

I laugh harshly at that rather tactless reminder of my former stupidity.
“I used to knock on your door and give you the satisfaction of humiliating me on a weekly basis, more like.”

His gaze lowers towards the floor and he looks... lost. There's a slight droop to his shoulders that betrays a deep discomfort and the way he suddenly shifts his weight from one foot to the other has all the hallmarks of genuine shyness.
“You are not coming anymore. It's been almost three months since your last... knock.”

My breath freezes in my lungs and my heart lurches. I can feel my own eyes widening as I try to lock my gaze with his, but he is still focusing stubbornly on his boots. I gasp out loud, forcing myself to rake his form slowly from head to foot and recount in my mind what I'm seeing: There's no turban, no delicate feather, no swirly magical mist. There are neither golden bracelets nor purple robes in sight. There's no lamp anywhere near us and his legs are both right here, beside mine... This is my Severus. Mine! This is the real him telling me... telling me what?...

My hand is visibly trembling when I reach out towards him. His whole body becomes rigid when my fingers graze his chin, but he allows me to lift his face upwards and his dark eyes confront mine in the tense silence.
“Wasn't that what you wanted? You never welcomed me in, Severus.”

He begins blinking repeatedly in some kind of agitated reaction to my question and I realize that he is a mere breath away from bolting.
“Look at me! Look. At. Me, Severus! Are you trying to tell me that you'll open your door, if I knock on it once more?”

Crimson colour takes his fair complexion by storm and I become aware of how badly I'm pressing him. This kind of exposure makes him feel uncomfortably vulnerable. He avoids these types of situations like the plague because he is too insecure to deal with them properly and, whenever he is forced to confront them, he tends to react with the defensive virulence of the wounded.
“I'm not mocking you, Severus. I'm right here, with you. I need to know what this means. Are you really implying that you'd be willing to let me in?”

He begins to shake so badly that I decide to let go of his chin. I try to soothe him by caressing his cheek gently and, for a second there, he seems to be about to lean into my touch. Then a door bangs loudly down the corridor and he jerks backwards with enough speed to have given himself whiplash. He disappears in a flustered whirl of dark robes and hurried footsteps before I can get a proper hold on him and I stand frozen to the spot for a very long time. My heart is pounding a mile a minute and my eyes are filling with tears of... hope? Gratitude? Terror? I don't think I could unravel the twisted knot of emotions that I'm feeling right now even if I were to live a thousand years.

By the time I finally enter my chambers I've forgotten whatever plans I was so busy plotting before that strange encounter and, for the first time since the night I conjured him, I go to bed without having summoned the Jinn. I sleep without nightmares or dreams and it's not until the next morning that I cross my lounge to stare down at the golden lamp with a strange pain weighing my chest down. The Jinn has been around when Severus himself wasn't and yet... he can't hope to compare to the frustrating man I love. There's something new happening between Severus and me. Something that kept me away from conjuring George's magic last night and it's shocking to realize that I... I didn't even... miss... it.

“Maybe dreams don't belong in reality, my friend... Maybe it's time for me to wake back up again and face the future. I have choices to make that might lead me away from you, but then you were never really here, were you? You were just... a beautiful trick. You'll never lead me anywhere, because there's no substance to you at all. You can only give me a castle in the air. A lovely illusion. An empty... everything.“ I wonder if George has realized this already or if he's still too trapped inside his own hopelessness to care...

* * * * *

The last weeks of November become a blur of sideways glances and silent, unacknowledged, tension. Severus is trying to avoid me, and that behaviour is so unusual for him that it re-awakens my abandoned hopes with enough strength to keep me away from his conjured substitute. I begin losing sleep over the whole issue and I wonder if it'd be really worth it to... try... reaching out to him one last time.

He is everything I've always wanted. Everything! But I'm so afraid of another rejection that my own inherent boldness has deserted me. I feel too fragile to handle a return to these past years and my brain keeps telling me constantly that this is too good to be true. Miracles don't happen in real life, Harry.

So I sit back and wait for some sign one way or the other and we both begin a game of hide and seek that has no resolution. He won't look directly at me. Won't single me out any longer, won't constantly question my actions anymore. But he keeps watching from the east corridor windows whenever I fly with Rolanda, and even delivers the nutritious potions for Hagrid's wide collection of rescued creatures while I'm actually in the cottage. He hovers around the staff room far more often than he used to and spends an inordinate amount of time gazing at me intently, before going down to his dungeons every Friday night. I see all this and my heart flutters with a bright, dangerous, hope. But my courage... my courage falters in the face of all the despondency that once forced me into the thrall of a conjured Jinn.

I love him, I truly do, and I'm starting to believe that there might be a genuine future for us. But now I know something else, too: I'm not strong enough to live my life without him and I'm afraid of what I might end up embracing if I rock this boat once more only to find out that I've been pursuing another empty hope that leads... nowhere.

* * * * *

December comes in a flurry of snowflakes and softly sung carols. Christmas approaches swiftly, bringing with it the kind of bitter cold that can't compete with the warmth brought on by the return of friends and family. Bill arrives a mere week before Charlie, and the Burrow becomes the beloved refuge where all of us converge to celebrate another year together. There's a sudden frenzy of meetings with old pals, and the season brings us all closer once again. The halls of Hogwarts become a dazzling rendition of the most beautiful winter wonderland and I forget to pine for either man or Jinn, devoting myself instead to embracing this fleeting time with the only family that I have ever known.

It's two weeks before Christmas Eve when something finally happens. I've come out to Diagon Alley on a shopping spree with Ron and Hermione when I finally spot that book I promised myself to buy her if I ever found a bloody copy of it. A swift look in her direction assures me that, for once, she's too distracted by Ron's antics to glance towards the bookstore and I take my chance right there, mumbling something about having to make one last detour before joining them at The Leaky Cauldron for the first available cup of a warm beverage.

They continue on distractedly and I run towards Flourish and Blotts. It's too cold to linger outside and I'm ready for that drink, anyway. My purchase is secured in under five minutes and I walk out of the booksellers without looking where I'm going, busily trying to hide my carefully shrunk package inside the inner pocket of my coat. When I bump into a tall someone it doesn't even cross my mind that it could be Severus and my distracted apology freezes on my lips as my eyes settle over him. We both stand in the small arc of light in front of the store's door and I smile besottedly at the array of snowflakes that dot his inky locks.

“Severus... What are you doing here? I imagined you safe and warm back at the castle.”

He shifts uneasily under my scrutiny and I begin to wonder if he's considering brushing me off before retreating as fast as he possibly can. I'm surprised when his shoulders square and he takes a deep breath before explaining quietly.
“I exchange a few gifts with Aurora and Minerva every year. I've been doggedly attempting to introduce them to the wonders of Muggle poetry for about two decades now.”

I chuckle under my breath with a gleeful sort of malice. I can't really imagine any two women less inclined towards that particular genre and it shows clearly on my face. Surprisingly, Severus doesn't use my instinctive mirth against me, but returns my knowing smile with a small one of his own.
“I know. I've been thinking of giving up for a while now, but... I don't really know what else to get them, so I'm stuck playing the game of allowing them to believe I'm just... that disagreeable.”

“I could help you, you know? But not right now. Right now I'm beat and there's a drink at the Leaky Cauldron with my name on it.”

For a man who has spent the last few weeks avoiding me like the plague, he looks so disappointed that I gather all my courage and pour it into my next question.
“Won't you join me, Severus? It seems like years since we last spoke... I promise to help you with your shopping tomorrow, or the day after, if you are willing to accept my help. Nothing I suggest is going to be more unwelcome to those two than good old Byron.”

A single flash of plain fear crosses those dark eyes before he turns his head away to look in the direction of the pub. He seems strangely indecisive as he pushes his gloved hands into the pockets of his robes and, when one of his reedy shoulders lifts in a half arch of badly faked nonchalance, I catch a brief glimpse of the cripplingly shy teenager he must have been.
“I... yes. I'd like to have a drink, too.”

My heart begins singing inside my chest and I smile brightly. One hand moves to grab his elbow and I start walking towards our joint destination with relieved excitement. There's such joy filling my body in this one moment that it takes me a few steps before I actually remember that I'm here with my friends.
“I'm not alone, Severus...” I start to say and then frown when his feet falter on the snowy ground. He comes to an abrupt halt and I look at him, puzzled. There's a kind of disbelieving hurt clear in his face.

“I'm sorry, then, Mr. Potter. It was never my intention to... intrude... on your outing.” He starts struggling to set his elbow free and I tighten my hold on him instinctively.

“I'm here with Ron and Hermione, Severus! I was trying to warn you that we won't be able to be alone until they go home. I understand if you'd rather go back to Hogwarts than join the three of us, but... you could still come, you know? They'll be gone in half an hour anyway and we could settle in a corner-booth and have dinner together before returning to the school. We both live there, after all. There's no reason why we shouldn't... hang around.”

He becomes totally still as my words fall between us and I can see him bite his lower lip in a fit of sudden indecision.

“They're my oldest friends, Severus. There's nothing truly important about me that they don't know about. Seeing us together won't faze them, I promise.”

His black eyes shine like polished ebony in the darkness. They are so filled with trepidation that I want to hold him tightly against my heart and never let him go. The lamp's Jinn was never this uncertain, this... ambivalent. He was always ready to embrace me, always compliant with my every wish, always filled with nothing besides my own reflected desire for him to love me back. This doubt-filled original brings me to life with his nuanced responses. I react with protective devotion to his unspoken fears in a way that I never had to do with the Jinn.

Severus needs me far more than the lamp's mirage ever did and that makes me feel both humble and far more exhilarated than I ever experienced with that purple-robed impostor. Reality has a way of destroying the weak shadows of dreams with the sheer strength of it's own inevitable imperfections. And these imperfections are the very things that make it richer, brighter and far better in the end...

I love him, yes. But I also desire to protect him. I want to treasure him and be the wall he can lean on. I want to be both his strength and his weakness. I want more than just... reciprocation. I want something that's able to fill us both with... life!

“All right, then. I'll join you.”

When I smile at him this time he swallows with visible nervousness but remains beside me, and I wouldn't change this skittish man who is so valiantly willing to fight his natural insecurities to spend this one evening with me for all the Jinni of ancient Persia put together.

* * * * *

Dinner with Severus is a dream come true, and I wake up the next morning with a feeling of elation that I haven't felt in ages. I can't mind the dreary weather when I'm buoyant with excitement, and the fact that I've secured a whole afternoon with him is making my stomach flutter with sheer nerves. I begin planning our shopping trip for those gifts I promised to help him with and I float around my chambers without ever paying attention to George's lamp.

There are times in a wizard's life when the beautiful power of magic just... isn't enough, and this is one of them. Love can never be properly conjured, not in the way most people desire to feel it. Love is an emotion that's based on choice, on freedom. No trapped puppet can ever give you that. No magic Jinn could really be Severus.

He looks genuinely relieved when I finally join him and I begin to see that he expected me to stand him up. He's been harmed before with the awful weapon of emotional neglect, that much is patently obvious, and I suspect for the first time something that I should have seen long before now. Perhaps his past reluctance to interact with me had more to do with self-protection than with actual dislike. I wonder if my constant attention made him feel as if he was being attacked, rather than pursued, and I promise myself to be more patient with him, to allow him breathing room.

“Are you ready for this, Severus?”

His dark eyes look serene when they settle over me. It seems that my simple question has managed to soothe his own trepidation and he takes a very deep breath before his beautiful voice breaks my expectant silence.
“Even if I'm not, you'll help me, won't you, Harry? It took losing your constant nattering around me to realize how much of my time and effort I've been dedicating to pushing you away in these past years. I've missed you lately and I... I...” His great courage falters then and he turns his head away, trying to hide his flushed face from me.

My heart pounds against my ribcage and I lift a trembling hand to touch his hair with the deep yearning that I've been carrying inside my heart for far too long. He looks towards me once again and our eyes find a way to speak without any words.
“I won't ever go away again. I'll stay for as long as you want me, Severus. Forever, if you let me...”

He smiles then, and the expression on his face is so beautifully bashful that I'd give my very soul to keep it exactly as it is for the rest of our lives.
“I think that I... I'd like that very much, Harry,” He whispers, almost inaudibly, and when my hand shifts to cup his cheek tenderly he doesn't try to reject it. I stand up on tip-toes and place a single, dry-lipped kiss on his thin lips. He gasps, surprised, and his response is hesitant at first. There's no memory in my head that can compare to the wonder of this moment. This kiss means the world to me. As simple as it is, as obviously awkward and inexperienced and... innocently passionate, it still has the power to rock my whole world with its delicate tenderness. With the heartfelt warmth that fuels it. With its implicit and welcome promise of a future filled with... more.

It's amazing how many things we have in common. We both shy away from crowded places and enjoy each other's silences. We like soothing kinds of music and believe that Minerva should have something that makes her break into loud laughter for Christmas. We both love lifting our faces towards the heavy dark clouds and feeling the cold pinprick of falling snowflakes burning our faces. We are both searching for that... something... that we've seen everyone else find, and he seems to have finally arrived at the conclusion that we might be able to reach it together. We are both speaking the same language, at long last. We are reading from the same page and longing for the same outcome. We are finally standing together, breathless and hope-filled, at the very edge of... heaven.

* * * * *

We begin spending our free time together, and everything seems to be so easy between us now that neither can explain the reasons behind all those years of painful alienation. Christmas Eve arrives too soon for Severus' liking, and he makes the excuse that our relationship is still too young to put it through the stress of 'meeting the parents'. He refuses to accompany me to the Weasleys' for dinner and I end up missing him so terribly that I can't stand the thought of staying overnight as I had originally intended. Midnight finds me standing stock still in the middle of Hogwarts' snow-covered grounds, wishing with all my of heart for these hopes that I'm so stubbornly holding onto never to be dashed...

“Harry?”

Severus' alarmed voice breaks into my thoughts and I whirl around, startled. He looks ruffled and breathless, as if he's run all the way up from the dungeons. His long hair is tangled and his pale face has that pinkish color that leads me to believe that he'd been deeply asleep until very recently. At that moment I realize that he's come out in a thin garment that must be his nightshirt and nothing else. He is just standing there, looking straight at me with a frown on his face, while his whole frame shivers visibly with cold.

“Severus! What are you doing out here? You are going to freeze!” I move forwards in a panic, pulling off my thick winter coat and enfolding his thin frame within its folds.

“I wanted to see you as soon as you came back tomorrow, so I added a magical alarm to the wards before going to bed. I woke up the moment you crossed the gates and I thought... What happened?”

“You matched my magical signature to a presence alarm because you wanted to see me?”

His dark eyes widen impossibly and he stares at me in the growing silence for what feels like an eternity. Then he loses all colour and takes a single step backwards.
“I understand what it sounds like, Harry, but... I wasn't trying to spy on you, I swear! I just... I didn't want to miss you tomorrow, so...”

“Severus... I came home early because I couldn't stay back there without you. I don't care about how crazy it sounds. I don't even care if it's too soon for this, I... come! I'm going to give you your Christmas present right now.”

He blinks with evident confusion and holds more tightly onto my coat. The very tips of his potion-tainted fingers peek between the open edges of the buttons row, where they clench around the cloth.
“But... it's the middle of the night, Harry...”

“Does any of that really matter? It's already Christmas day and we are both too frozen to sleep at the moment, might as well warm up beside a good fire and exchange our gifts.” I'm pretty sure it's the promise of warmth that convinces him not to argue any further, and he matches his stride to mine, following me home in silence.

There's a curious calmness to me now that I've never truly felt before this moment. I've decided to risk everything. He's right here, in the middle of the night, after abandoning his cozy bed in a rush because he believed me to be in trouble. We could dance around one another for a while longer and still arrive at the same destination further down the line, but I don't see the need to drag things out. Not now that I'm mostly certain that he feels the way I do. He's ready to open his door and I'm going to knock on it properly this time.

By the time I have him seated beside the fireplace with a warm cup of cocoa between his palms, he looks far more awake. His dark eyes roam around the room with obvious interest and there's something indefinable about his silence that conveys unspoken approval of what he sees. When he finally places his cup on the side table I pick up George's lamp carefully and set it in his hands without a word. He looks down towards it, frowning slightly.
“This is what you are giving me? I... Isn't this yours? I remember seeing it the first time I was here.”

“It was a birthday present from George. I don't need it anymore. I want you to have it.”

He looks straight at me with something very much like hurt flashing across the dark surface of his eyes.
“You are giving me a Weasley prank for Christmas?”

“It's not a prank. It's... a desperate man's attempt to harness the power of the Mirror of Erised. Do you remember how convinced you used to be that there was something wrong with me? Well... you were right. I was enthralled by a vision that I summoned right out of this thing.”

His hands twitch around the body of the lamp and, for a moment, I'm afraid that he's going to drop it. Then his head lowers and he studies it in silence, turning it this side and that in the eerie quietude until he finds the inscription etched onto the golden metal and reads it aloud thoughtfully:

- All days are night to see till I see thee,
And night bright days, when dreams do show thee me... -

“That's a verse from Shakespeare... What did it show you, Harry? Why are you giving this to me?”

I sit on the couch next to him and curl my hands around his own so that both of us are holding onto the golden lamp.
“It showed me a copy of you, Severus. One that could be manipulated into returning my own desperate feelings. It showed me what I believed at the time would be my only hope of ever finding heaven... I was so tired of being rejected... I was so jealous of Leonides Urguis that I behaved like an idiot and you vanished before I had any chance to apologize.”

“Harry... Leonides Urguis is as old as Albus.”

I laugh slightly hysterically and my hands leave his own to frame his face.
“I didn't know that until now, did I? I believed that I'd messed up everything. I lost my very last hope while you were away and this... this is what I grabbed onto, what I became. I don't ever want to return to being the pathetic slave to a magic trick. I don't want to settle for having only a dream of you ever again. I can't! I refuse to dwell in a world of make-believe when I can have the real thing with you. I love you with all of my heart, Severus, and I promise to devote myself entirely to bringing you happiness if you give me the chance to build a life beside you.”

Apparently unable to answer, Severus lowers his head and allows his thin lips to capture mine with the kind of exquisite gentleness that tells me everything that he can't bring himself to say yet. My fingertips curl more firmly around his face, bringing it forwards until his whole chest is virtually plastered to my own. Our mouths remain blissfully entwined and there's nothing else I'd rather be doing right now than kissing him like this.

With a soft gasp he pulls slightly away, and there's a serenity to the moment that I'm not sure I want to break. He seems dazed. Shocked. Paralysed... The flames dancing in the fireplace tint his pale face with golden colour and he looks wild and aroused. I love him. I love him. I love him... I've never seen a sight more beautiful than this one, and I lick my lips and whimper with such raw passion that his gaze lowers down towards my mouth and he shivers with what I'm hoping is lust.

“I've never done this with anyone who mattered before, Harry...” He chokes out finally and his voice is so reedy with strained desire that my blood pounds in my veins, alive, on fire...

“I'll take care of you, Severus. I'll always take care of you, I promise...”

Those ebony eyes burn with enough heat to melt the skin off my bones and I can't live a second longer without touching him. My hand coils gently around his long neck and my callused thumb starts rubbing soothingly up and down the pale skin I find there, feeling it shift beneath my fingers every time he swallows, with every breath he takes.

By the time I've pulled his body low enough to lie almost completely atop mine, we are both trembling with a kind of hungry desperation. I arch up, our lips merge and a glorious sense of rightness flares along my nerve endings. This is what I want to do for the rest of my existence. This is where I shall dwell until I exhale my very last breath. I want to live within this kiss for all eternity. I want to curl right into him and burrow under his skin. I want to belong here, in these arms that are trying to embrace me. I want to be the reason behind this man's joy...

“I think we should move this to the bedroom, Severus. I don't want our first time to be a rushed couch affair.”

He laughs nervously but shifts far enough away for me to pull out from under him. I sit almost immediately, looking straight at him with a veritable storm of unadulterated trepidation pounding in my ears. Our eyes meet and I feel like I'm drowning into an ocean of deep longing. My hand curls around a lock of his long hair, looping it around the delicate shell of his right ear. I need to unveil the totality of his flushed face to the hunger of my gaze. I want to see every part of him in all its glory. I want to adore all of him. Always...

“If we do this, then I'll be yours, Severus. Forever... I'm not going to wake up tomorrow already regretting having made love to you. I'll want to do it all over again. And again. And again... until I'm coiled so tightly around your heart that you can't bear to live without me, either.”

“I was conquered long before I surrendered to you, Harry. I've been orbiting around you for so long that I felt utterly lost while you were enthralled. I don't want to be by myself anymore. I... I need you, too. I'm going to want you tonight, tomorrow and every day after that as well.”

I've dreamed of hearing him say something like that for so long that my eyes begin to burn and my heart flees my ribcage. This might be, without a doubt, the single most beautiful moment of my entire life and I want to treasure it like a jewel.
“Then come with me, Severus.”

My senses become so focused on his shy smile, on his narrow face, on his beautiful dark eyes, on his ebony-black hair... that I spare no memory for the trip into the bedroom. I can't remember which one of us pulled down the covers, nor who conjured the soft Lumos that illuminates us both as I undress him reverently. Like a gift that I've waited my entire lifetime to unwrap I remove his thin nightshirt slowly, so very slowly... Unveiling first one bony shoulder and then the other.

He responds to my every touch with trusting abandon, and I grow both bolder and more aroused by the second. My lips trace the scarred line of his long neck, laving with adoring devotion the mark left behind by the snakebite that almost killed him. And he holds onto my head, grabs thick tufts of my hair with instinctive strength, and surrenders to my touch with a soft sigh.

His chest is narrow and too thin, he's been scarred beyond all beauty but I can't see his mangled left nipple, nor the thickened red lines that crisscross his back and chest, as anything other than great odes to unbending courage. I love him all the more because he has survived whatever caused these marks and it shows in my every touch, in my every kiss. I cover him with passion and then blanket him in my love. I lick him, touch him, kiss him, leaving not a single inch of his trembling body untouched, and he writhes in my arms, gasping aloud in shock and chanting my given name with a reverent intensity.

By the time I find myself distracting him with a deep kiss while trying to dilate his tight entrance with a single, lubricated finger, I'm convinced that I could draw his whole body from memory alone. I'm attempting to push into his quivering body as gently as I can, but he's showing the instinctive resistance of those who've been greatly harmed before and I wonder who was the beast who treated him so harshly.

“Harry!...”

He is trying to shy away from the delicate rocking of my penetrating finger and I use my free hand to brush a single lock of his sweaty black hair away from his face before kissing his brow reverently.
“I'm right here, my love. I'm right here... I'm not going to hurt you, or leave you hanging. We are both going to find pleasure here tonight, Severus. We are both going to reach out for the stars together...”

His dark eyes seek my own desperately. They look shattered and bright. He is unravelling layer by layer within the safety of my one-armed embrace and I tighten it around him, kissing his open mouth gently just as I curl my index finger against that nub inside of him that will melt his very bones with pleasure. His startled cry shows the shock of a man who's never known this blissful fire and I smile against his lips, proceeding to turn him into a babbling puddle of Slytherin desire. He shivers and pleads, he swears and trembles, he arches into my touch and demands more in broken, thready gasps that coil around my senses, driving me past madness. When two fingers turn into three and his head is thrashing wildly against my pillows I can't wait a second longer and pull gently away from him. His boneless body flops against the mattress but his eyes look at me with a panic born of unfulfilled passion.

“Harry... What?...”

“Ssshh. It's all right, I'll be with you in just a second. I can't take you without lubing myself properly, Severus, you are far too tight...”

He flushes bright red and blinks, as if in shock, before deciding to push himself up onto his elbows, to better look at me as I spread the hand-warmed gel over myself. I slow down the motions of my hand, allowing him to see glistening glimpses of my reddened cock-head peeking rhythmically in and out from my own loosened hold. His wiry chest begins to heave as his breathing speeds up at the sight and I can't tell if he is totally aroused, totally terrified, or somewhere in the middle of them both.

When I scoot forwards he flops back against the mattress and stares into my face with those dark, unfathomable eyes. He lifts his hips up helpfully when I push one of the pillows under him, but his intently focused stare and sudden silence are unnerving me into believing that something is wrong.
“Severus... are you sure about this? We could settle for a hand job or something. We don't need to go this far, if you are uncertain...”

He smiles directly at me then and the intent expression in his face dissolves into the most serene rendition of heartfelt adoration that I've ever seen. My breath hitches and he lifts one long-fingered hand to trace the lines of my face, as if he were a blind man trying to see me.
“I love you very deeply, Harry Potter. I can not wait to become finally yours...”

I start trembling so much that his fingers fall away from my sweaty face and he loops them behind my neck, pulling my whole body forwards. I slide between his spread thighs and the next thing I know is that we are kissing again and my entire upper body is pressed flush to his. My hard length finds its way between his arse-cheeks, as if by instinct, and the spongy head pushes gently against his entrance as our kiss becomes even more intimate. I shift minutely away, far enough to look into his eyes as I begin to enter his tight body. His neck arches fluidly backwards and his Adam's apple bobs wildly in his throat as he clenches around me, probably in pain. I begin rubbing his jutting hipbone soothingly, while attempting to control my own instinctive need to forge ahead.
“Push back against me, Severus. The pain will pass in a minute, my love. You've got to trust me...”

His hand tries to cover my own and he turns his head slightly, forcing his pain-glazed eyes into sudden collision with mine.
“I've always done this in silence, but I... I like hearing you talk, Harry. Just... I need you to keep whispering nonsense for a while longer...”

I gasp breathlessly and smile.
“Nonsense, eh? If you don't like the quality of my pillow-talk you've only got yourself to blame, don't you? How can I have clever thoughts when you are driving me this crazy?... You are so tight around me that I can't even breathe. You are so hot that you are burning me like a flame of Fiendfyre. You are melting me with pleasure, branding me with your essence and making me your own...”

His thighs finally relax around mine and I drive far more forcefully into him, pushing hard against his prostate. His whole body freezes, suspended atop a wild wave of sheer pleasure and his lips open in a silent scream of blissful agony that he lacks the strength to voice. His eyes widen and focus intently on mine as I begin to possess him with a careful but firm rhythm. Our bodies finally fall into sync as I push relentlessly into him and he raises upwards to meet my every thrust halfway. We become an undulating mass of molten passion, seeking the resolution that only orgasm will bring us. I'm on fire and my senses reel with shock as I start to unravel above him. My trembling hand curls around his leaking shaft, stroking it with desperate urgency until he splinters apart with a soft gasp. The sight of his flushed face, crumbling into soft-eyed wonder, has me spilling in the next second deep inside him.

I fall bonelessly forward and he catches me with his spindly arms, trying to cradle me protectively. I melt against his chest and bask in the sweet joy of finding myself resting directly against his heart while his fingers trace lazy patterns on the skin of my back. My body softens slowly and I feel myself slip out of him with a sigh of loss. His arms tighten around me and we both shiver in the gentle quiet, mourning for the loss of our short-lived union. Then I shift slightly to the left, settling on the mattress right beside him, and we turn to face each other like a set of twin sunflowers following parallel suns.

A swift wandless charm allows me to scuttle closer without fear of getting painfully glued together, and we both lean quietly into one another, seeking the instinctive reassurance of further contact. Time slows down as we enjoy the moment in contented peace. His hand rubs my arm slowly and I begin blinking sleepily while gazing straight at him.

“All days are night to see till I see thee...” I recite those words aloud into the relaxed silence that surrounds us and he looks at me thoughtfully.

“Many will think you mad for having chosen me instead of the magic, you know. I won't ever be as compliant as whatever it is that comes out of that lamp.”

“There was never a competition between the two of you, Severus. The Jinn was just... a moment of desperation on my part. An instant of weakness. George told me tonight that the magic stops working when there is no longing to fuel it, anyway. It's like the mirror itself, don't you see? The happiest man on Earth would only see himself... I don't need it anymore, now that I have you, and chances are that I won't be able to bring that copy of you back, even if I wanted to. The lamp is now a simple token to remind us of how close we came to losing all of this.”

I shiver with distress at the very thought and he gathers me in his arms, embracing me carefully. I feel him kissing my sweaty forehead and sigh with such contentment that he laughs. The sound curls around my heart and finds a home there as I pull slightly away to look at him. He is lying right beside me in rumpled disarray. His cheeks are flushed, his lips kiss-swollen; his eyes shine like dark ebony while his long hair fans across the pillows and I genuinely believe that I've never seen a more beautiful sight in all my years.

“I love you, Severus Snape,” I whisper directly against his lips with the unconquerable strength of deep conviction and finally find myself holding onto my very own piece of genuine heaven when his hands frame my face gently, pushing away the sweaty locks that are insistently falling into my eyes with the pads of his thumbs, and kisses me reverently before whispering right back:

“And I love you too, Harry Potter.”

The End.