Title: Spoils of War
Author: CiraArana
Pairing(s): Harry/Ginny, Harry/Severus; also mentions Ron/Hermione and other canon pairings
Rating: R
Word count: ~ 11,000
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction set in the Harry Potter universe – all recognisable characters and settings are the property of J. K. Rowling and her associates. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made from this work.
Warnings 1: het, slash, violence, blood, sex, nastiness in the past, AU
Warning 2: Attention! This story is a carnivore! It has eaten five betas so far. Please, do not attempt to proof-read – you won’t make it past the second chapter, and I’ll never hear from you again.
Summary: The war has changed Harry. His loved ones have to deal with that.
Harry stood under the door and looked at the tiny room he had stepped into.
It was given the impression of a dark cell by the bookshelves that ran along the walls, from floor to ceiling, above and underneath the two small windows. The shelves were crammed with books and rolls of parchment. The air was heavy and full of dust and the scent of old leather.
In the middle of the room stood a small table with a rickety sofa on one side and a deep leather chair on the other side. Above the table hung a chandelier, and one lone candle stood on the table. They were the only sources of light in the room, creating an island of warm brightness in the dusky room.
Burrowed so deeply in the armchair that he was barely visible sat a man. His head was bent down over the book he held in his pale hands. His long hair fell forward and hid his face. He did not look up at the sound of the door closing, nor in the following silence. After a moment, he lifted one hand to turn a page.
Harry strode forward into the room. He shrugged out of his coat, threw it over the back of the sofa, and sank down onto its faded cushions.
The man opposite still didn’t look up.
Harry settled back onto the sofa, legs stretched out in front of him, arms loosely folded in front of his chest, eyes trained on the black head. The minutes went by in silence. The only sound was the occasional turning of a page.
Harry let himself slip into the silence. A feeling of home and safety rose in him. He smiled as his body and mind relaxed. Here, for this one, he didn’t have to be anything or anyone he wasn’t. This man had seen his worst. Had seen it and understood it. Here, Harry was at peace. He laughed softly. Who would have thought?
The man opposite him moved slightly at the sound of the laughter. His head came up, slowly, as though against his will. Cold, black eyes met Harry’s.
Harry inclined his head.
‘I’m back,’ he said softly.
The man regarded him for a moment, and then snorted.
‘Obviously.’
He returned to his book. Harry closed his eyes and allowed himself to think of nothing. Not Ginny and how much he must have hurt her; not Ron and Hermione; and not his silent companion, either.
After a while, he felt eyes watching him and opened his. Severus frowned irritably.
‘Have they no offered you a bed?’ he asked snidely.
Harry yawned and nodded. ‘Oh, they have.’
His opposite drummed his fingertips on his book when no more information came forth. Another couple of minutes passed by. Harry did nothing, simply watched the other man lazily from under half-closed lids. He knew what was going on behind those seemingly empty black eyes. But he was damned if he made it any easier for Severus.
Finally, Severus spoke again.
‘Why didn’t you accept it?’ His voice sounded as though he was forcing the words out, strangled and wooden. His pale face was an expressionless mask.
Harry no longer found this unnerving; the blank façade meant Severus was using Occlumency. Considering that he knew Harry was no Legilimens who would try and pry into his mind, that could only mean that he was suppressing his emotions once more.
That, however, Harry did find unnerving.
‘Why?’ He shrugged. A soft smile ghosted over his lips. ‘I told you I’d come back.’
Severus snorted. His fingers clutched on his book. ‘It is bad manners to say “I told you so”.’
Harry grinned.
‘And it is impolite to gloat,’ he informed Harry testily.
Harry laughed. ‘Tell me about it.’
Severus gave an irritable hiss and went back to his book. Harry let him, enjoying himself. He knew that behind those cold eyes impatience warred with the dislike to appear weak, or, Merlin forbid, interested, by asking questions.
He wondered vaguely why they were still playing those games, still trying to one-up the other, but then shrugged inwardly. Severus was a Slytherin. This kind of game appealed to him. And if it made him happy, Harry was willing to play along.
‘Miss Weasley did not accidentally slip out of her robes to hold you back?’
Harry blinked his eyes open. Severus was staring at him under frowning brows, his thin lips pressed together so tightly they seemed to have vanished. The question registered, and Harry laughed.
‘Oh, is that the way Slytherin girls get their man? “Accidentally” drop their robes?’
The sound that reverberated in Severus’s throat could be called a growl. Harry smiled, a little sadly, and shrugged. ‘No, she did nothing of that kind. She’s not that kind of girl.’ He paused. His eyes became vacant as he stared into space. ‘Not that it matters. She won’t do it now.’
‘Mr Potter, every woman is devious in her dealings with the male sex. Even Gryffindors. I can scarcely believe she would not do her utmost to win you back.’ This was said with a sneer, but Harry thought he could hear a question behind the words. His mouth twisted.
‘She won’t do it now, Severus, believe me. I … I talked to her. Told her.’
‘Mr Potter, if you wish your conversation partner to understand you, try to refrain from uttering cryptic fragments of sentences.’
Harry grinned against his will. ‘I told her that I can’t be with her.’
‘Which, of course, resolved the matter.’
‘Ha, and here I thought you taught her for five years! Of course she didn’t accept it! I—’
‘Of course not.’
‘Hey! Wha—? You just said …’
‘That, idiot boy, was what the initiated would call irony. But you must forgive me. I forgot that you are quite unaware of such subtleties. When one attempts irony, one says exactly the opposite of what one actually thinks.’
‘Yeah, thanks for that, Severus, but I actually knew what irony is.’
‘Remarkable.’
‘Oh, stop it,’ Harry said impatiently. ‘Do you want to hear it or not?’
‘It, Mr Potter? I believe I told you to not be cryptic.’
Harry rolled his eyes and simply went on. ‘Well, as I said, Ginny didn’t like it when I told her I can’t be with her, and she didn’t want to accept it. She … she wouldn’t accept my reasons.’
‘Half-cooked excuses,’ Severus said under his breath.
‘Shut it. You know they weren’t excuses. The war … things … it changed me. I would have hurt her. I told her so, but she wouldn’t believe me.’ He fell silent, staring into the fire, unaware of the alert black eyes on his thoughtful face. ‘I … I think she might have been of your opinion. That they were excuses. She got pretty angry at me for, as she said, making her decisions.’ He shook his head and smiled, a little lopsided. ‘Called me an arrogant berk. So I showed her.’
Harry didn’t notice the white fingers clench around the book or hear the tiny gasp.
‘I shocked her,’ he went on quietly. ‘She was scared afterwards. Too scared to even … Well, doesn’t matter. So, we broke it off for good.’
‘Indeed. And what makes you think that I will accept Miss Weasleys leftovers?’
Harry’s head jerked up. ‘It’s rather the other way round,’ he said angrily.
‘Oh? So, Miss Weasley is too good for my leftovers?’
‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it!’
‘Do I?’
‘Of course you do!’
Severus gave a snort that delicately indicated disbelief. Harry sighed and slumped on the sofa.
‘You know what I mean, Severus,’ he said wearily, running one hand through his hair. ‘This is nothing to do with someone’s leftovers. Besides, what am I? Some kind of steak? No, this is about you and me being the same. We share … the experience. You understand.’
‘I’m sure Miss Weasley would be more than willing to do her best to understand you.’
‘Yeah, and that’s it, isn’t it? She’d try. But she can’t. Never. None of them can. None of them had … had their souls ripped apart by Voldemort. They won’t ever understand the need to … They’d never understand the violence. The light, from the abyss. You do. I do. We are the same.’
Severus was silent for a long while. His eyes were downcast, but Harry didn’t have to see them to know what the man was thinking. What he was remembering. Because he remembered, too.
And that was the reason behind all this. They shared the experience and memories of the war, and no one who hadn’t been involved would ever be able to understand. Not Ginny, she had not fought. Not Ron and Hermione; they had been through it all with him, but they had never been at the centre of it all. Not like he and Severus had been.
War veterans, the both of them. Harry smiled grimly. And no civilian, no one who had not had lived with the mortal danger day by day, no one who had not lived through the Darkness that was Voldemort and his magic, could ever understand what it had done to them.
‘Ah, and I thought Gryffindors were so brave,’ Severus breathed finally. His voice was soft, fragile, but the sarcasm was there all right.
Harry blinked. ‘Huh?’
Severus waved one hand in a dismissive fashion. ‘Daring, brave … no thoughts about danger, always willing to risk everything …’
‘What has that to do with anything?’
Severus bent his penetrating stare on the younger man. ‘I was wondering that Miss Weasley, in spite of her professed love for you, was not brave enough to face the changes in your nature.’
‘I told you, she was scared!’
‘Yes, yes. But you must allow me to be surprised. I wasn’t aware that Gryffindors knew what fear is.’
Harry rolled his eyes. ‘This is getting old,’ he murmured.
‘Stop mumbling, Potter, it is impolite.’
‘Yeah, whatever.’
‘You have no manners, Mr Potter. Another trait Gryffindors share.’
‘Yes, with the Slytherins,’ Harry said with a small laugh.
Severus’s nostrils flared as if he had smelled something unpleasant.
Harry laughed again, louder. ‘Really, Severus. Not all Slytherins have impeccable manners, and yes, Gryffindors know what fear is.’ He sobered, his eyes darkened. ‘But we don’t run away from it,’ he added, more to himself.
This drew another snort from his companion. ‘And what would you call Miss Weasley’s actions, then?’
‘Survival instinct,’ Harry retorted. He cocked his head questioningly. ‘I wonder … You keep talking about her, Severus. What for? I told you it’s over. I’m not going back.’
The black eyes stared back at him for a long time. A tiny smile began to lift the corners of Severus’s mouth. A wicked glow warmed the empty depths of his eyes. Harry felt something in his stomach coil.
‘What?’ he asked, slightly breathless.
Severus laughed, soft and low. ‘You may consider my harping on House characteristics as “getting old”, but you cannot deny the truth in them.’
‘Severus …’
A slender, pale hand rose and stopped Harry’s words. The wicked glow became positively vicious. Harry shivered.
‘You cannot deny, Harry, that Slytherins know how to win.’
Harry’s breath caught. Another shiver ran down his spine and ended in his groin. Without thought, he got up and stepped forward. The table was thrust aside and fell down with a clatter that neither man regarded. Then, Harry was kneeling over Severus, his hands in the lanky black hair. The book was cast aside. Severus’s eyes burned into Harry’s mind. Their lips met in a savage kiss.
The familiar wave of white-hot lust rose inside of Harry at the contact. He leaned in, deeper and deeper, closer, wilder. Sharp teeth tore open his lower lip. He groaned. The wave crashed down on him, and Harry let go.
He pressed down hard into an answering hardness. There was nothing soft; all viciously sharp edges under his hands. Hot and sharp, threatening him, trapping him, and setting him free. He sunk his own teeth into the hardness and bit down, drawing the light out of the abyss.
A hissing sound echoed in his ear. He was pushed backward. His body collided with the hard floor. The impact sent his head spinning.
He was pressed down. Hands tore at him. Everything was light; he couldn’t breathe. His body burned in the light, the need. He had to move, up and closer, deeper, higher into the light.
Harry snarled and fought the hands, the body holding him down. The sharp, lean heat twisted, and then he was holding it down, pressing it into the floor, tearing and sucking and biting and kissing.
Pale hard flesh moved against, into his hands and lips. There were razor-sharp edges underneath it, beautiful white hard ridges. They beckoned him to kiss, to mark, to possess. Yes, this, and then more and deeper, tear it all, let the light out.
He moved again, further and down. Pale sweetness and musky shadows, and he took it all, bit, kissed, marked, owned until the wave rolled in and over him.
He was thrown down again, and then turned over onto his stomach. Hard fingers pressed his shoulders into the ground. Harry snarled. He struggled up onto his knees and pressed his palms flat into the floor for leverage.
Then, there was the white-hot stab of feeling inside of him, feeling far too intense for easy words like pleasure or pain. He threw his head back as the light enveloped him, carried him higher and higher up. He screamed, howled, spurred on by the snarling and hissing coming from behind him, spurred on and further by the wild rhythm, the light beating inside of him, on and on and further and up and higher until he exploded into the white light around him.
With a hoarse whimper, Harry collapsed, Severus on top of him, and the receding light sucked them into the abyss.
The floor was cold and hard beneath him as Harry slowly came back. He blinked his eyes open; everything was blurred. He groaned and tried to move but a warm weight pressed him into the cold floor. Harry tried to wriggle out from underneath it and groaned again. His body was sore and aching. His shoulders and neck burned with what he knew was bite marks, and his ass burnt as well.
The body on top of his moved with soft, regular breaths. Harry peered over his shoulder at the blurry face half-hidden behind tangled hair. Severus lay half on top of him, his head on Harry’s shoulder, one leg thrown over Harry’s.
It was cold and uncomfortable, lying on the floor like this. Harry smiled. He linked his hand with the one that was still holding him down and snuggled closer into the body lying on top of him. His eyes closed. It was all right. He was home.
(Source: ciraarana.livejournal.com)