Fic: An Accident in Time (Harry/Snape)

Feb 07, 2010 12:40



Day Twenty-One

Harry was almost thankful for the chiming of the wards, because it allowed him to leave the living room, and Severus's presence.

On his way to the door, Harry wondered whether living with teenagers was always like this. Whether they were always either moody and sulking, or absurdly cheery and … scheming.

Because he was sure that Severus was scheming. The way the boy acted was not normal. Probably. But ever since last Saturday when he'd cornered Harry with his questions, Severus had been acting weird. And he'd been watching Harry. Constantly watching him, openly or out of the corner of his eye. More than once, Harry had seen a calculating gleam.

It made him very nervous. Uneasy. Mostly because he had no idea what Severus could be planning. If it had been someone else, Harry would have said Severus was interested in Harry. There had been that one time in the kitchen …

But that hadn't meant anything. Severus was a hormone-driven teenager. He'd just reacted unwittingly to Harry's interest. Plus, Harry knew that Severus was interested in women. The man had been in love with Harry's mother for most of his life! True, Harry had dated girls, too, before he had even realised he was more attracted to men more than women. But he rather thought that Snape, who had always been more self-aware than Harry, would have realised that he'd been attracted to men by the time Harry had come to Hogwarts. But there had never been the tiniest hint. So he wasn't. Hadn't been. Couldn't be.

And Harry doubted that sexual orientation changed with de-aging.

Unfortunately, Harry's body hadn't received the message that Severus wasn't interested. It made spending time with the boy even more uncomfortable.

So much so that the wards sounding the alarm came as a welcome distraction.

It just surprised him that the people who were after Severus hadn't taken the next step sooner. They really weren't very good schemers.

Harry stopped in front of his door and took a deep breath. He let it go slowly, counting heartbeats. Then he rolled his shoulders back and nodded once before he let his wand slide from its holster into his hand. The routine, trained into him during his first three years with the Aurors, made him calm and concentrated enough to face any kind of enemy.

Holding his wand up at half-ready position, Harry opened the door. The path to his garden gate wasn't long, and even in the darkening gloom he had no trouble seeing the person standing just in front of it. Close enough to trigger the alarm, but not close enough to actually activate the ward's defence mechanism.

Harry closed the door, leaving it slightly ajar, and inclined his head towards his visitor. He didn't step away from the door. 'Yes?'

The hooded person bowed ever so slightly. 'Good evening, Mr Potter.' A deep voice, slightly scratchy. Obviously male. Probably the same Unspeakable who'd tried before. 'You are harbouring Severus Snape.' It wasn't a question.

Harry crossed his arms in front of his chest and smiled grimly. So they were finally moving out into the open. 'Yes.'

The hooded head nodded. 'Please hand him over.'

Harry barked out an incredulous laugh. Fucking impertinent idiot. 'No.' He turned as if to walk back inside, wand arm tense to start casting the moment the Unspeakable tried something.

'Mr Potter!' the wizard snapped, and Harry stiffened. The anger he'd been feeling grew. He wouldn't be ordered around by anyone, much less on his own property. Slowly, as slowly as he possibly could, he turned back around and raised his brows.

The Unspeakable huffed, obviously annoyed. 'You have no legal right to Mr Snape,' he declared.

'Neither have you.' Harry gave him a bland smile.

A sharp, impatient movement. 'Mr Snape is, at the moment, an underaged wizard without a designated guardian, which puts him in the care of the Ministry.'

'Wrong.' Harry bared his teeth in what the other might take as a smile. 'He is mine under the requirements of the Life Debt. If you want to argue that, take it up with your own department. Aren't the Unspeakables the ones who know all about Life Debts?'

The Unspeakable gave the impression of gnashing his teeth. Harry could only marvel once again at how stupid everyone apparently thought he was. He hadn't fallen for the idiotic story the Healer had told him, and now they thought he'd cave because they mentioned Ministry guardianship? They really must think him stupid. Or naïve. The wizard hadn't even tried to use legal mumbo-jumbo.

It was rather insulting.

'Mr Potter,' the Unspeakable spoke up again. His voice was lowered to what Harry recognised as gently coaxing and "We're all reasonable adults here, aren't we?". 'We do not want to harm Mr Snape, despite what he might have told you. He was unreasonably suspicious about the outlines of the tests we asked him to undergo. He did not allow us to properly explain these matters to him but insisted we wanted to, ah, vivisect him for our pleasure. I assure you, Mr Potter, that is quite, quite wrong.

'We do not want to harm or hurt Mr Snape in any way. We want to study him. We want to understand his condition, and the magic that caused it. We want to help him break the curse. You cannot argue that this is a desirable result.'

Harry shrugged, unimpressed. Of course it all sounded so very reasonable but Harry had come to trust Snape's paranoia. The man usually knew his enemies very well.

'Sorry,' he said insincerely, 'but when Snape invoked his Life Debt, he insisted that I was to keep you away from him and not hand him over for any kind of "test". So I won't. Neither to you, nor to the Healers, not even to the Minister himself. That's all I have to say on the matter. Please don't come to trouble us again. Good evening.'

With that, he turned and went inside, ignoring the Unspeakable shouting after him. He made sure to close the door gently, then cast a couple of locking charms on it.

'Those bastards,' he growled at the door and shoved his wand back into the holster with unnecessary force. Turning around, he saw Severus standing in the hall just a few steps shy of the door. He had obviously been eavesdropping again.

But, surprisingly, he didn't look as upset as Harry thought he would have after hearing the Unspeakable so blithely discuss him. In fact, he didn't look upset at all. He was pale and wide-eyed and breathing rapidly, but the expression on his face looked more like joy than upset. As though his birthday and Christmas had come together, with an Order of Merlin, First class, on top.

'You all right?' Harry asked gruffly. 'Stupid Unspeakables. As if I'd give in to threats. Or sweet-talking. They must really think I'm some kind of complete moron. It's pretty insulting.'

Severus blinked and gave him a shy, shaky smile. 'You said I was yours.'

'Yeah, and they won't get their dirty paws on you. I won't let them!' Harry shot another dark glare at the door, hoping the Unspeakable who was still lingering in front of his gate would somehow feel it and go away.

He didn't. The wards chimed again.

For a moment, Harry thought about going out there and hexing the man, but then he had a better idea. He dashed into the living room and dug out the box with the ward stone. It needed only a little prod with his wand, and the first, and mildest, defence wards activated. A yelp came from the front of the house. Harry grinned with satisfaction and put the stone back into the box.

'There.' He turned to Severus with a broad smile. 'That one definitely won't come back again!'

Severus's answering smile was so bright and joyful Harry's heart had trouble dealing with it.

Day Twenty-Five

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fic: an accident in time, fest fic, pairing: snarry, genre: romance, rating: nc17, kink: ust, fandom: harry potter

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