The Thaw (Melt With You Remix)
Remix Author: Louise Lux
Original Story: The Thaw by Marks
Summary: Harry returns to confront Snape about his feelings.
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Harry Potter
Seventeen years is a long time to be buried alive.
Harry was thinking this as his fingers brushed along the cold stone of the corridor that was leading him to Snape's office, the one where he'd once fallen over under the force of Snape's will. He'd never forgotten that day, or any of those lessons, especially the last one of all. He wondered if Snape had changed. Harry had left Hogwarts last year, but Snape never had. He'd had spent half his life down in the dark. No wonder he was a miserable bastard.
*
Their fight was unending; the same questions over and over again.
Let me in
No
Let me in
No
Let me in
No
The silent conversation was circular and outside time. They had moved closer, chest to chest, almost. Their eyes were shut, a protection from reality. A part of Harry could see all this clearly.
He stood as still as he could, hardly breathing, but inside he was struggling, pushing with all his strength against a wall; a tall, dark, frightening wall backed by a will that was pushing just as fiercely against him, implacable and cold. The pressure was unrelenting. Harry thought he might lose. He really didn't want to, not this time.
*
Harry knocked on Snape's door at least five times, quite calmly at first, then finally turning single knocks into a volley. His knuckles throbbed. He waited, slightly breathless, rubbing his hand. Perhaps that had been a bit much.
The door opened a fraction.
'What?' Snape barked, then, suspiciously, 'what are you doing here?'
A draught of damp chilly air fled the room. Even in the poor light Snape's skin was grey and unhealthy, the corners of his mouth drawn back in a thin sour line. Faced with this, Harry asked himself why he'd thought this would be a good idea.
'Can I come in?' Harry heard himself say, in what appeared to be normal, calm tones.
'I want to talk to you.'
'Talk?' Snape looked lost for a moment, as if he couldn't think what the word could mean. 'To me?' He frowned. 'No. Go and talk to someone else.' His voice was filled with baffled outrage.
Under his dark hair and pale expanse of forehead, Snape's eyes looked as dark and empty as a forest in winter, shut down and waiting for life to come back.
Once, Harry would have asked Snape if he was feeling all right, but he knew that Snape hated that sort of thing. Instead he thought it best to ignore what he could see in Snape's eyes. He was perfectly aware it was something Snape didn't want him to. 'Actually,' he said, fear making him more abrupt than was usual, 'it has to be you.'
*
They had come to a familiar point: where the same question was asked and refused, over and over again until it wasn't clear to Harry what was being asked or who was doing the asking or the refusing. Very faintly, he thought it should be him, in that minute part of his mind left to him for thought. It was supposed to be him refusing, that was the point of the lesson, to learn how to keep someone out. It almost made him giggle, that they should be couching their fight in such a polite dance of question and answer. But this was Snape; they shared an unspoken vow these days not to let things get personal.
They balanced on the edge, neither being able to break the other. A trickle of sweat ran over Harry's brow and into his eyes, where it stung. Snape gasped audibly. There was a brief wobble of equilibrium. Harry willed himself to sink back into the silent intimate struggle until, after what might have been hours or minutes, quite suddenly something changed.
Let me in
No
Let me in
No, no ... yes
*
He shoved his foot in the doorway just as Snape swung it shut in his face. It hurt like anything but he pushed back against it, hard. These days he wasn't quite as puny and he was nearly as tall as Snape. He could see Snape was as surprised by this as he was by the foot stuck rudely into his doorway. He applied more effort, just as Snape stepped quickly back and let go of the door handle. Harry almost fell into the room.
'Well then, if you insist,' Snape muttered gracelessly.
Harry followed him in before he could change his mind. On Snape's workbench a cauldron was boiling. The sound of whatever was inside boiling thickly gave the illusion of life and heat, even though the hairs on Harry's arms were rising from the cold. A book lay open next to it, along with a sheet of parchment that Harry could see was covered in Snape's handwriting.
Snape was old and worn around the edges, a man past the best of his life, but he still carried himself as if he were something special. His back was straight and his gestures were smooth and economical, his fingers dextrous as he sorted through the ingredients on his desk. Ron, based on his own private hatred, had always said Snape was a fake, but after the war began, even before that, if he was honest, Harry had stopped listening. He'd begun to notice what Snape actually did.
Little by little Harry had seen his vitriol for what it was: a smokescreen for something less sharp, and more full of misery, than he'd ever thought possible. Understanding took away the sting of Snape's words. Little bits of the man had fallen into place like a particularly hard jigsaw puzzle. Snape was like that, you just saw the bits that caught the light, the edges of things; you never saw the whole man. Unless you could look into his mind. But even now Harry still had the sense of stumbling in the dark.
Standing in his office, preparing the great speech that he'd got ready for this moment, Harry thought it didn't seem possible that he had once hated Snape so much. Those feelings seemed distant, part of who he'd been a year ago. Seeing the deep grooves in Snape's skin, he was struck by the concept that a year for Snape might not seem quite such a long time.
'What potion is that?' he asked, just to fill the quiet. His question sounded ridiculous in his ears, but it must've been the right thing to say after all. Snape raised his eyebrows, obviously surprised that Harry would ask such a question.
'An experiment. I'm writing a paper,' he said, 'on the properties of Lethe's Bramble when used as a muscle relaxant.'
There was a pause. Harry wondered what to say next, thrown by a sense of how their relationship had changed its footing. Snape had no authority over him now. Harry had no obligation to show him any respect.
'Oh. Good. Do you do that often?'
'What?'
'Write papers and things, I meant.'
'When I've the time,' Snape replied with a meaningful look at Harry. 'But you didn't come here to talk about potions, did you.' It wasn't a question. 'What do you want, Potter?'
Harry decided that now was the time to say it. He tried to meet Snape's eyes and found his own wavering away after a few seconds.
'The thing is, Snape.' He didn't have to look to imagine Snape's outraged stare at the use of his name rather than Sir. 'The thing is,' he went on, unable to think properly about what the thing was. He'd had it all planned, but now it was coming out jumbled and confused.
The reality of actually saying these things to Snape now seemed ludicrous and quite mad. Feelings from his schooldays came sneaking back, as easily as sipping a glass of pumpkin juice, cold and fluid. Snape could hex him, see inside, and laugh at his most private thoughts.
'Snape. I know you've always hated me, but I wanted to tell you that it's all right,' he said decisively.
'Oh, good,' Snape said faintly, after a moment of looking like he'd been hit with a bludger.
'What I mean is-- '
(what did he mean?)
' --is that I was just thinking,' he said, 'that you probably wouldn't have hated me if my father hadn't been so awful to you back in school.'
Snape waved his hand sharply and the cauldron stopped bubbling. Harry heard the quiet click of the lock as it turned. His spine prickled with fear.
'What did you just say to me, Potter?'
'I just meant - I understand why you hate me. Because of my father and Sirius.' He backed away as Snape moved forward, the words tumbling out of his mouth unstoppably. 'You blame me for how they were at school, but if you took the trouble to get to know me maybe you'd find you liked me.' Had he really meant to say that? 'I don't hate you anymore, at all. I understand, I really do.' He'd got to the part that was quite possibly the thing that would really get him into trouble. 'Our last lesson, when I was in your mind-- I know there's a part of you that's real. I trust you.'
Snape stared at him, his eyes as black and unreadable as the bottom of the school lake. If Harry tried now, he could sense the edges of Snape's consciousness. It repelled his own like they were twin magnetic poles. Snape's mind snapped closed and he flinched slightly, enough for Harry to notice. Shockingly, Snape's mouth twisted in a smile and he appeared to be about to laugh.
'I'm glad we've had this little chat, Potter. I was forgetting what an arrogant little shit you really were. Do you really think it's that simple?' Now he did let out a hard laugh, more of bark than anything. 'I believe you actually might.
'Your father was a bully all right, and I loathed him. He despised me,' he added, almost as an afterthought. 'But then you already knew that.'
The smile vanished. Horrible as it was, Harry preferred it to the cold stare that he was getting now. 'You should know better by now, Potter, than to think human emotion is simply a matter of black and white, hate or love.' Snape turned away, apparently too disgusted with Harry to go on looking at him. 'I might think our lessons counted for nothing.'
*
With silent triumph Harry burst through the dark wall and into Snape's mind, slicing through the layers of his defence as if they were cobwebs. It was easy, very easy now. But the confusion he was expecting, the jarring, fragmented tumble of memory was quite gone. Instead he was in a bright empty space. Far away stood a small dark figure. He floundered in a sense of calm acceptance, coupled with an emotion that he didn't understand. Harry knew that the figure was Snape, and that he was waiting for Harry. As if from miles away he could feel Snape trembling and could hear his breathing going out of control. Then Snape shouted;
NO!
and he was staggering back from a hard shove against his chest, falling out of the white place back into the hard, cold shapes of Snape's office.
'Sorry, I'm sorry,' he gasped, white and shaking, at Snape's stricken face, unable to work out quite what he was apologising for, but understanding that he had to. He'd been somewhere he wasn't supposed to be.
It was their last Occlumency lesson. Soon after that the war started in earnest.
*
Harry felt a wretched shrinking foolishness, remembering the strange, alternately hateful and sometimes secretly wonderful lessons that dragged on until Snape couldn't keep him out of his mind anymore.
'I'm not as simple as you think, Snape.' He said the name fiercely, wanting Snape know that he wasn't scared of him. He was eighteen and had battled the most powerful dark wizard in the world. And he'd won. 'You were the one who stopped those lessons, remember. Because you weren't strong enough to keep me out anymore. I wanted to learn more.'
'Potter, you're a fool,' Snape said, spitting out the words as though they were bile. 'You understand nothing.'
'Tell me then,' Harry shouted. 'You kept telling me I don't understand. What is it about you that I don't get?'
There was a long pause while Snape seemed to be staring into space, his expression a curious mix of exasperation and acceptance. Then he sat down on the edge of his desk and crossed his arms.
'How old are you, Potter?'
'What? Eighteen. Why?'
'Once I thought I could be something else other than Potions Master at Hogwarts.' His voice was low and bland, but his eyes were as bitter as Harry had ever seen them.
The walls took on a looming air, rising up over Snape's head like a threat, or a cage. Even the windows down here had tiny crisscross bars on them. They couldn't let in that much light.
'Why did you stay, then?' Harry said softly.
'Do I really need to tell you why?' Snape said. 'You know most of it, after all.'
Snape was referring to the Occlumency lessons again. Harry knew Snape's history almost as intimately as he knew his own. Occlumency lessons had gone on long enough for that, at least. Harry thought of that last time, when he'd found the locked and hidden place. It still had a curious taste of victory. It had happened in this room. He could remember exactly where they'd been standing, and how the heel of Snape's hand had pushed at his ribcage to shove him away. He touched his fingers there now. They'd been standing far too close. Snape had said Harry didn't understand. Going into his mind had been been like walking through an open door.
You didn't win. He let you in, stupid.
'People aren't black and white.' He repeated Snape's words back into the room. 'Especially not you.'
Snape didn't move. His expression didn't change in the slightest.
'Is there anything else I should know?' Harry asked, his heart speeding up in a second, making it hard to control his breathing.
He waited, hardly believing what he had just asked. Perhaps now was the time he was going to be hexed into next month. He realised he was staring into Snape's eyes, and had been for the past minute.
'You know more than anyone else has ever-- ' Snape stopped, staring back. 'You know more than you should,' he finished.
After a few more moments spent staring it filtered through to Harry's mind that he understood what he was being told. It wasn't as surprising as he thought it should be. Snape's eyes followed up the lesson he'd just learnt, telling him more. In them was a sharp satisfaction. Harry's face flamed and his knees were weak and trembling. The point wasn't that Snape hated him. It was the opposite problem, he thought wildly. He imagined himself at the age of eleven and wondered what Snape had felt about him then, then wished he hadn't. He could feel himself shaking all over.
'You don't hate me,' he said at last, and laughed, clapping hand over his mouth at the harsh sound. 'How long have you-- no, I don't know if I want to know that.'
'No,' Snape said, very quietly.
Harry tried to imagine what must be going through his mind.
'Stop looking at me like that Potter. I'm not a complete pederast. You're quite safe. Always were. It's-- quite recent.'
The words came out like pulled teeth and dropped into silence. Harry found himself speechless. After all, what could you say to that? He couldn't say all right or don't worry, because that wasn't true. It wasn't all right at all.
'Oh. I see,' Harry managed after a while, then winced at the painful inadequacy of it as a response.
Snape was glaring at him again. It went on for so long that Harry began to think he'd imagined the whole conversation. Then Snape shook his head a tiny amount, not as a refusal but as if he were tired and didn't want to talk anymore. Harry watched him rub at his eyes with one hand, as thought he hadn't got enough sleep the night before.
The tension inside him changed into something less identifiable. The small gesture made Snape seem very real: human and frail. Snape would probably hate knowing he'd inspired those sorts of feelings. He looked away, seeing how the cauldron was still steaming faintly. He noticed how neat the workbench was, everything lined up in rows. A tiny, clear thought struck him, standing out against his confusion: he'd probably ruined Snape's experiment.
'Potter, I... '
Snape's mouth was cool and soft and he made a small sound when Harry kissed him.
'Don't say anything else.'
Harry turned and left before Snape could forget all this and get angry again. He looked back as he shut the door. Snape was still sitting on the edge of his desk, his white face flushing with pink, like a touch of sun.
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The Thaw (Melt With You Remix)
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