Title: Into the Abyss
Author: mistressmaraj
Team: Phoenix
Genre(s): angst
Prompt(s): kiss, forgiveness
Rating: NC-17
Warning/Kinks: *Harry is 17, major character death, non-con, non-graphic torture, dark themes, swearing, homophobic terminology*
Word Count: ~14,000
Summary: Brutally attacked by a Dementor the day after the final battle, Harry struggles to find his way back to himself and defeat Voldemort...again. Will Snape, who has his own agenda, be able to save Harry from himself?
A/N: Please heed the warnings. Canon-compliant through the end of Deathly Hallows. Many thanks to my betas: leela_cat, who put up with a lot of missed deadlines and cut a lot of text which will thankfully never see the light of day, as well as Ziasudra who jumped in to help with very little notice. This story was vastly improved with their efforts. Any remaining mistakes are my own. The lovely, hardworking mods will always have my greatest respect for running the best fest of the year and thank you for not killing me after missing a deadline or two. Thanks also to perverse_idyll for some fantastic ideas and discussion on angst.

Into the Abyss

"You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you’ll have no sense of self any more, no memory, no ... anything. There’s no chance at all of recovery. You’ll just exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone for ever ... Lost."

-- Professor Lupin, excerpt from "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban"

Harry thought he would celebrate now that Voldemort was defeated. He waited for happiness to steal over him, for the burden to finally lift. Instead, he just felt sick. Teddy was growing up an orphan because his parents had stood behind Harry; Harry had seen only the worst of being an orphan. George would be haunted by the loss of his other half because the twins had fought beside him. The weight of the bodies laid out solemnly in the Great Hall transmuted his victory to ashes.

Their deaths were senseless. This entire war had been senseless. If only he had acted sooner so many could have been spared.

Yet somehow he had survived, as had Ginny and Ron and Hermione, and even most of the Weasleys.

Shouldn’t he be able to rejoice in that? Hadn’t he done his part, paid his pound of flesh? Been the willing sacrifice? Wasn’t it time for him to start building a life?

His stomach growled, reminding Harry that he had fallen asleep before Kreacher had delivered the promised sandwich.

Yanking his mind away from these depressing thoughts, he threw on his cloak over sleep-rumpled clothes, tucked his wand into a pocket, and headed for the kitchens.

The house elves were dreadfully happy to see him, bringing him piles of food he could never hope to finish, and he disappointed them when his fickle appetite abandoned him halfway through the meal.

When he finally escaped the elves, the hour was late. The halls between the Tower and the basement kitchens were empty. Filch and Snape, the two he would normally watch out for, would certainly not be out prowling the corridors.

Snape.

Bloody hell. He had left Snape in the Shrieking Shack, in a sticky pool of his own blood. Pale and utterly drained of life. Even worse, he'd abandoned him in the same place where the snapping jaws of a werewolf had nearly torn his throat out twenty-three years ago. An event which had left the legacy of a lifelong grudge and emotional scars. And after all the man had done for him.

It was unforgiveable that he had sat in the Great Hall last night, that he had described his plans for the Elder Wand to Dumbledore’s portrait, that he had crawled upstairs to the Tower for a kip, and had not once thought of Snape.

Snape was a hero. He had deserved a hero’s death. He should at least get a hero’s burial.

Harry had expected the castle to be filled with the sounds of mourning, but the halls rang with silence. Even his footsteps, rather than being amplified by the hard stone and echo of emptiness, were muted; each step laid out carefully after the next but none leaving any impact upon the stillness.

The shock of cold air pulled him out of his thoughts as he exited the castle, clutching his cloak tighter to his chest and gazing at the ruined grounds. The sounds of battle disturbed the silence, washing over him in a wave of despair. He nearly tripped over Fred’s body, the sightless accusatory eyes open in the dark.

He trembled, knowing Fred lay in the Great Hall.

A cloud of frozen breath fogged his glasses. This night was strangely freezing for Spring.

The epiphany came a moment before the darkness grew fierce enough to blind him, after his teeth began chattering with the chill that crept up his spine. Rough scaly hands seized him from behind and spun him around.

Grasping his wand, he tried to think about vanquishing Voldemort. Not the death, and loss, and horror. He needed just one unsullied victory...

One perfect, happy memory...

"Expecto Patro -- " The white mist never took form.

His wand dropped from nerveless fingers. Not now. Not after just escaping death.

He did not see the Dementor’s face under the hood as fabled when it administered the Kiss; he saw nothing, only felt a rattling darkness as it pressed against him in a parody of a kiss. As it inhaled him.

He couldn’t even scream when a tearing pain rent him in half, his sounds muffled by the monster intent upon his soul.

Harry fell.

Sharp, grimy fingers pressed him against foul, tattered robes and he thought Dementor before jerking away into a sprawl on a stony floor.

There was pandemonium, shouting surrounded him and he was cold, so very cold that he was shaking.

"My lord, my lord. Are you all right?" There were dozens of voices, the sounds of dozens of restlessly shifting bodies. Harry looked up.

What he saw made him go colder than before. A heavily cloaked figure leaned over Voldemort, who shoved away his minion and rose on his own. Perhaps now was a good time to flee, but a peculiar weakness kept Harry on the ground. His arms were covered in deep purple bruises and old scabbed-over injuries. Rusted manacles encased his wrists.

Oh my god, this was a horrible dream. Wake up!

Disconnected, Harry seemed to be watching the scene unfold from afar, despite the throbbing in his ribs and the heaviness of the chains. The Dementor was still behind him, its odor sickeningly sweet, a putrid concentration of happy memories stolen from their owners. The bony hands raised him from the floor and when he swayed dizzily, dug into his shoulders like claws.

Having straightened himself, Voldemort stood commandingly before his Death Eaters, his face twisted with rage. He was close enough to Harry that he must be feeling the Dementor’s presence, if he had retained enough of a soul. The others kept an impressive distance.

"My lord, are you all right?" asked the increasingly familiar voice. The bowed figure shuffled toward his master, fidgeting uselessly until Voldemort silenced him with a blood-red glare chilling enough to freeze Harry’s tongue. Harry would recognize the cowardly wheedling anywhere: Pettigrew.

"That Mudblood whore's protection cannot protect you forever," Voldemort snarled and Harry heard his mother's dying screams.

The Dementor’s cold despair wrapped him tightly in a cocoon of memories.

What was Voldemort doing here? Why was this happening to him? Harry tried to push down the hopelessness; he would need his wits about him to escape.

"A thousand tricks up your sleeve and more luck than you know what to do with. Don’t think you’ve won, Potter. I doubt you have any more idea how you overcame the Dementor's Kiss than I do," Voldemort hissed too quietly for the legions of Death Eaters to hear, so close that his breath caressed the stubbly line of Harry’s face, hot in contrast to the chill panting of the Dementor along the back of his neck.

"How many times do you think you can resist the Kiss before succumbing? You’ll never join your parents and my last true opponent will be lost."

Harry's blood boiled; this anger was familiar. He opened his mouth to retort only to find that the chill binding of his tongue was not mere reaction to Voldemort, but the subtler work of magic. He would not be allowed to interrupt.

"You won’t take this victory from me. Now be a good boy and play your part for my Death Eaters." Voldemort waved his wand, and Harry felt his eyes glaze over; his facial muscles stiffened, then went slack.

Voldemort turned to his followers.

"You bear witness to my day of victory. Harry Potter will no longer threaten my reign as I now take my rightful place over the Wizarding World. The Ministry is ours. Hogwarts is ours.

"You have heard rumors of a prophecy, that this mere boy might play a role in my downfall. I have heard your whispers, felt your doubt. Well, my most loyal supporters, witness the Resistance’s savior now! The Boy Who Lived is an empty shell, nothing more than a petty annoyance. One of the lost, Kissed, soulless. The Resistance can have their martyr – drooling and in nappies – and beyond all hope of saving."

"Bellatrix," he called and she stepped forward, her face rapturous. "You have never questioned me. Take your reward now."

"He looks as gormless as the Longbottoms." She laughed. "Pretty, pretty little toy."

"Crucio," she cast -- not creative, but certainly effective. Harry’s world turned to fire.

The magical prohibition was clearly only limited to words as Harry’s howl lit up the arena.

"It still screams," Bellatrix announced over his agony. "Such sweet music," she crooned. Her smiling face above him, the crazy bitch worked him over until his voice was gone. His consciousness followed.

Harry was sorry to wake up and did so with a groan. His body was too heavy to move. He felt like he’d been sleeping for a hundred years.

"Harry!" Hermione launched herself at him. "You’re awake. Ron, quick, get the healer."

"Hermmene. Where’sm I?" He coughed. His throat was dry.

"You were portkeyed to St. Mungo’s from Hogwarts after you collapsed. You’ve been comatose for a week."

"God. What happened?" he muttered, feeling a headache building behind his eyes and only just realizing he was squinting without his glasses. Hermione passed them to him without question and the world came into focus.

"I don’t know. We found you on the grounds, unconscious. Madame Pomfrey treated you for exposure, but you just wouldn’t wake up!"

"I was going to retrieve Snape from the Shrieking Shack, and there was a Dementor. It...oh god, it Kissed me."

"It tried to Kiss you?" Hermione asked, incredulously. "The Ministry doesn’t have them under control at all!"

"It didn’t try to. It did. I felt...I dunno, like something was tearing inside."

"Harry, if a Dementor had Kissed you, your soul would be lost. You would be gone. It must have been like in third year, when they were attacking you."

"No. It was completely different--"

"Good morning, Mr. Potter," a new voice interrupted as a tall figure entered the room, followed by Ron. "My name is Healer Thompson and I’ve been treating you during your stay at St. Mungo’s. It seems we’ve finally decided to wake up. How are you feeling today?"

"All right I guess," Harry said, rubbing his aching temples and wishing he could go back to sleep or remember what the hell had happened. After the Dementor there had been...a nightmare about...Voldemort. God, that had seemed so real. As had Bellatrix torturing him. But they were both dead.

Ron flashed him a relieved smile.

"Well, I want to do a full workup now that you’re conscious. I’m going to have to ask your friends to leave."

"I don’t mind if they stay. They usually know everything that’s going on with me anyway." Or manage to figure it out.

"And I’m afraid that I’d prefer they leave. I rarely have a patient who is as forthcoming when their friends remain as audience and I do need to hear exactly what happened."

"Don’t worry, Harry. We’ll talk afterwards," Hermione whispered on her way out.

"Yeah, see ya in a bit, mate," Ron said.

The healer looked down at Harry, his gaze assessing. "Now, how are you really feeling? I don’t believe for a moment after what you’ve been through that you’re feeling 'all right.'"

"I suppose I should be grateful he didn’t know about the Horcruxes?" Harry shouted.

"I’m so sorry, Harry! I told the healer almost everything when you wouldn’t wake. They weren’t finding anything wrong with you and I thought...I knew they didn’t know half of what had gone on with you. It could have been dark magic they didn’t know to look for." Hermione looked miserable.

"Oy, mate. Don’t make her cry," Ron said. Hermione’s eyes weren’t even wet, the traitor.

"Well they still haven’t a fucking clue what’s wrong with me!" The healer had no explanation for how a Dementor might Kiss him and he would suffer nothing more than a temporary coma.

'Soul magic is very old, very powerful, and very poorly understood,' the healer had told him. Thompson seemed convinced that Harry believed he had been Kissed, at least. Which was just a way to question his credibility, the condescending prat.

"Does that mean you have to stay here longer? Mum’s been asking when you’re coming to the Burrow," Ron said. "It’s been really quiet there."

Harry couldn’t go to the Burrow, he just couldn’t. He couldn’t intrude upon their grief, their home, face Mrs. Weasley weeping in the kitchen. Ginny would need to talk and Ron would want to hang out and not talk.

His throat tightened. He couldn't think of a thing to say to any of them. How could he make this right? How could he watch them, knowing nothing would ever be the same?

"There don’t seem to be any tests left to run on me, so what good would it do to stay? I think I have an official diagnosis of magical exhaustion. I’m supposed to ‘rest.’" They also want me to talk to a counselor, as I’m apparently experiencing vivid hallucinations of my deepest fears, but he didn’t say that.

He never thought about where he might go until he had the discharge papers and was halfway out the building, where he encountered a small army of reporters. He apparated to Grimmauld Place instinctively. Hermione appeared after a moment.

"Oy! I thought you’d be at the Burrow," said a disgruntled Ron, when he arrived five minutes later.

"I need to be alone," Harry insisted and kept insisting until they left.

"Does Master need anything? Kreacher can be getting Master a late dinner if he wishes."

"Thank you, Kreacher, but I’m not hungry just yet."

Harry had missed a week’s worth of funerals, which turned out to be all of them. Wizarding tradition didn’t allow sellable body parts to remain unprotected above ground or uncremated for too long.

Snape had been cremated in a mass ceremony for those who had perished in service to the wrong side, his ashes scattered to the wind.

Harry was too late -- for Snape, for the long list of Order members, half-bloods and Muggleborns who had thrown their lot in with him and had waited for a miracle through the vicious thinning of their numbers.

The funerals might be over, but the festivities had just begun.

And right now, what Harry Potter wanted was to be left alone.

For days Harry successfully dodged owls, visitors, and questions. Order members seemed to think that since Grimmauld Place had been headquarters while Sirius lived there, they were equally welcome to pop in and give Harry the third degree. None of them made it past Kreacher, although there were a few close calls. Was there a polite way to have a house elf toss out the Minister?

His friends were the easiest to evade, Ron being engaged in the day-to-day activities of a grieving household and Hermione having urgent business to see to in Australia.

And every day, his obsession with this dream grew. He resented the idea of seeing a mind healer. He would figure out this obsession with Voldemort, Bellatrix, and Dementors on his own.

He paced back and forth, feeling out of sorts. If only he could figure out what was going on. He barely noticed his head hitting the pillow before falling into an exhausted sleep.

"Back are you?" a sardonic voice asked. "Care to tell me why you’ve been staring at the wall for the past three days, Potter? Even you aren't usually that mindless. One might almost believe you’d been properly Kissed." Lank hair and dark eyes peered down at him, the face twisted into a sneer. Harry was lying on a bed, his modesty poorly preserved with a thin sheet. The manacles he had worn before had been transfigured into smooth metal bracelets.

Harry didn’t scream because he wasn’t that startled. He did jump a little at Snape’s voice and the state of his near nakedness. "Snape! What are you doing here?" Now Snape was part of this imaginary world?

"What am I doing here, Potter? These are my chambers. The question you are grasping for would be what you are doing here." Snape rocked back on his heels before taking a seat next to the bed. Now that he wasn’t towering over Harry, he was slightly less intimidating, though his stare still appraised Harry and seemed to find him lacking.

"The Dark Lord has many questions for you, Potter. Foremost on his mind, however, is how you managed to wriggle out of the Dementor’s Kiss. He trusts me enough to find an answer for him; in fact, I’m the only Death Eater who knows your true condition."

You killed Dumbledore, Harry wanted to say. And I’m sorry for leaving you in the Shrieking Shack to die warred with a maelstrom of other thoughts. The inadvertent winner was an escaped, "What condition?"

Snape’s look implied that Harry was very, very stupid. Painfully so. "The Dark Lord had you Kissed to minimize the risk of you taking part in the prophecy. Clearly you are unkissable as you are talking to me. And yet, you have acted like one of the soulless for the past three days.

"The Dark Lord was hardly going to tell his followers that you had foiled yet another plan so he pretended you had been successfully Kissed. And now, in circumstances oddly reminiscent of the last six years of my life, you are once again my problem."

"Look, why are you doing this? I realize you were on our side all along, and I’m sorry that I didn’t do more to save you."

"Potter, what on earth are you on about? You think I need saving, from the most trusted position in the inner circle? Clearly, you are more damaged than I thought. Cease this babbling at once."

"I just don’t understand what’s happening...why this is happening."

Snape trained his wand on Harry, his gaze penetrating as he cast, "Legilimens."

Harry was powerless to force Snape from his mind. Unbidden, certain images rose to the surface. Sirius falling through the Veil. Dumbledore with his blackened hand teaching lessons about Tom Riddle. The Tower, and Snape’s escape from Hogwarts. The final battle, when Harry lost his life. The blood painting the Shrieking Shack with Snape’s life. Snape’s memories. The Dementor attacking him, administering the Kiss no one could quite believe had happened. The last three days.

"Potter, what false memories are these?" Snape snarled, keeping his wand aimed at Harry.

"What the hell are you talking about? You already know about most of those things, Snape. Get the fuck out of my mind!" Harry shouted. None of this was making any sense. Why would Snape, who had clearly joined his league of nightmares, be confused about the very nightmare he appeared in?

"I never killed Dumbledore!" Snape insisted indignantly. "I don't know what you think you will accomplish from this little charade... Legilimens," Snape cast again.

Snape had put more power behind the spell, Harry could tell immediately. Snape combed through those memories, dissecting them strand by strand, pushing deeper and deeper into Harry's mind. His world narrowed down to awareness of those dark, searching eyes. The pressure of this strange intimacy built until Harry thought his head would burst and his groin throbbed in time with his head.

When Snape finally withdrew, Harry realized his head was nestled in the crook of Snape's arm, his limp weight resting on the bed. Snape stared at him in silence for a long while.

"You’re not him, are you?" Harry asked, feeling drained from the assault.

Snape slowly shook his head. "You’re not my Potter, either. There's no way you could have been implanted with so many false memories, and certainly not such realistic ones...And while Occlumency may be used to hide or distort certain images, there is no way to falsify events which never occurred."

"All that stuff really happened," Harry said.

"I thought for a moment that something had gone terribly wrong with the Dark Lord’s plans, as they so often do around you," Snape said, wistfully. "You rose after being Kissed, and he was the one who fell. And yet, this body displays all the signs of being Kissed when you are elsewhere. When you are in that world ripe with memories of events which never came to pass here. I cannot imagine that even Potter was lucky enough to overcome a Dementor."

"But I was Kissed too, outside Hogwarts. I...I felt it happen and my soul survived. You saw what happened! I didn’t imagine it."

"I will admit the memory was convincing, although anyone who could corroborate the sensation of being Kissed is beyond the telling of it."

"But you do believe me?" For some reason, this was important to Harry.

"You just fed me my own memories of your mother. Memories that I have shared with no one. However, I can only speculate as to what happened to your soul. Your Dementor should have extracted your entire soul, but this time it failed. If you truly felt your soul being torn, then perhaps it was. While most remained in your body, a fragment latched onto another body. And what better host for a piece of your soul than a familiar body that was simultaneously being emptied of its soul by another Dementor?"

"But why me?" Harry asked. "How could one Dementor splinter my soul and the other Dementor be completely successful in Kissing your Harry?"

"You do seem to have unusually exceptional luck. Perhaps his luck simply ran out, whereas yours did not. Old Magic saved you from the Killing Curse as a baby. This may have permanently altered the way you interact with magic and magic interacts with you --"

"Wouldn't your Harry have the same protections from my...er, his mum's sacrifice?" Harry interrupted.

Snape looked annoyed. "That type of magic is unpredictable. But there are other possible reasons as well. Dying might have changed the integrity of your soul, predisposing it to splintering."

Harry thought about that, tried to imagine that he might be, at this very moment, in possession of less than a whole soul. How would that affect him? He'd had a piece of Voldemort's soul inside of him for years and while vile to think about, the effects hadn't been too horrible to endure.

"Oh!" Harry said. "When I died, the piece of Voldemort's soul that he left behind in my scar was destroyed. I'll bet that ripped up my soul a bit."

The irony being that Voldemort had inadvertently saved his life, or rather, had allowed him to escape the Kiss.

"So it's true?" Snape's eyes glittered with something -- interest maybe, or malice. "The Dark Lord actually split his soul and hid the pieces in different objects? And Albus knew about it?"

"Er, yeah. I think Dumbledore'd been looking for the Horcruxes for a long time on his own before he died."

"I suppose you know what happened to Dumbledore’s hand?" Snape asked, suddenly intense.

"His hand was destroyed by the Horcrux in Marvolo Gaunt’s ring."

It was Snape’s turn to look confused.

"Didn’t Dumbledore ever explain what caused his injury when you healed him? He took to wearing the ring afterwards."

Something that may have been grief crossed Snape’s features. "I never healed his injury. I was called away to a Death Eater meeting; the next morning I found him collapsed in his office. I never saw a ring and he never mentioned a Horcrux."

The words left Harry cold. This Harry had been without Dumbledore’s guidance sixth year, which meant he knew nothing of Horcruxes or his mission. He must have fought alongside the Order blindly, never possessing the key to win the war. He had never stood a chance. It would have been so easy for this fate to have befallen him. One night to destroy Dumbledore and damn their world.

Harry didn’t want to know but found himself asking, regardless. "How was Harry caught?"

Snape looked reluctant to say, which was his final warning. "A trap, how else? You were always more brave than intelligent and there are certain triggers you are well known to respond to predictably."

"Who?"

"Mr. Weasley. Ronald, rather."

It hurt to breathe. "Ron, oh Ron," he murmured. "What did I let them do?"

"Your friend suffered greatly before his death. However, he was the lucky one despite whatever else you may believe. As Albus would say, he is on the next great adventure," Snape said, his words tumbling out haltingly.

"Harry, on the other hand, had ample time to appreciate the seriousness of what he had lost, how many lives he had risked to go after his friend. And then he was Kissed and gone, forever out of reach." Snape wasn’t berating or criticizing because his voice had gone low with grief.

"But he didn’t know," Harry moaned. "Your Harry had no idea how to defeat Voldemort -- could never have guessed, either.

"But I do," Harry said.

Something had changed in their relationship. Snape actually listened to Harry. Leaned forward, even, his attention rapt and unwavering as he took in every last detail about Tom Riddle’s quest for immortality. Harry watched the lines of determination set in as Snape planned the destruction of the more secure or remote Horcruxes. As Headmaster of Hogwarts, obtaining the sword of Gryffindor was simple. Ravenclaw’s diadem perished that very afternoon.

By the time Snape left for the abandoned Order headquarters to locate Slytherin’s locket, Harry’s teeth had begun to chatter. His head hurt and his thoughts grew increasingly distant and sluggish. The world tilted around him and he grabbed for something to break his fall, his eyes falling shut.

Light poured in behind his eyelids and lit his path like a beacon, pulling him in, beckoning him. Following it felt right and natural. At the end of this path, Harry found himself restored to his original body.

He wasn’t even sure if the other body had hit the floor.

Apparently, Hermione had returned from Australia because the next day she visited Harry at Grimmauld Place and started prattling on and on about soul magic.

Harry caught bits and pieces of Hermione's words: soul magic was complicated and mostly involved the binding of unwilling souls. Most of what Hermione discussed sounded more like the enslavement of will rather than actual information about souls.

He couldn't really follow what she was getting at. How did one know if a soul was enslaved or if the individual was under a binding compulsion? How did wizards know if magic had affected the soul at all? There didn't even seem to be a way to detect souls. No wonder St. Mungo's had been so useless.

The entire afternoon Harry tried to tell Hermione about Snape and what he now suspected had happened when he was Kissed. But Hermione was determined to share her newfound knowledge, and his own words stuck on his tongue. What was he going to say anyway, that this other world was real because it felt that way? It was real. Even after spending a year in Voldemort’s head, Harry had not undergone anything as vivid as he had with Snape. Harry was done being convinced by others that he could no longer tell the difference between real and imaginary.

He refused to listen to Hermione's insistence that 'of course it was real to him,' so in the end, he never mentioned it at all. They did not lack for topics anyway as she kept inserting survivor’s guilt, post-traumatic stress disorder, and various abandonment issues into their conversation.

Most irritating was the fact that some of what she said seemed to fit. After all, finding himself in a world where Voldemort had won, where he had failed those he loved utterly was his nightmare come true. And he did feel horribly guilty about everyone who had died, including Snape. What Hermione didn’t seem to realize however was that many of those deaths were his fault. Snape had died right in front of him but they still hadn't spared a moment to heal his wounds.

He needed to go back, both to oversee Snape’s progress with the Horcruxes and to reassure himself against his own niggling doubts.

In the pursuit of certain goals, as it turned out, concentration was not overrated.

Harry hadn’t been sure he could go back again, not up until the moment he succeeded. This was a reversal of the process as his body fought inertia, as he attempted to force himself back into the void. He sensed the presence of the other body, its core diminished, the ember of his soul a faint glow inside.

The disorientation was much greater this time; a blanket of fog stole over his slowly returning senses. He was lying on the bed, the mattress worn and comfortable. Lassitude seeped through his limbs and he kept his eyes closed, not wanting to be bothered with opening them. The room was so silent he suspected Snape was not there. He slept.

He awoke to the sounds of tea being stirred, the steady clink of the spoon as it hit the porcelain cup. He pulled a sheet into a loose robe around him and walked toward the sound.

"Sir," he said sleepily, feeling more like himself.

Snape looked surprised to see him and put his teacup down with a grimace. "Potter," he greeted warily. "I wasn’t sure I would be seeing you again."

"Oh, yeah," Harry said. "I guess I just disappeared suddenly before. I dunno exactly what happened, but I started to feel sick and then I just...went back."

"Was there anything else you noticed? How did you know it was happening?"

"There was a tugging sensation in my chest. And a bright light that I followed back to my body."

"Was it voluntary or involuntary?"

"It was almost involuntary, like it was inevitable at that point, but I felt like I had a measure of control over it at the same time."

"I presume you are leaving behind most of your soul when you travel to this body, and you can only maintain the separation for a limited period of time." Snape shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was a bit flushed.

"Are you all right, sir?"

"Fine, Potter." Snape glared at him.

"How is the Horcrux hunt going, then? Did you find the locket?"

Snape had. Which left only the cup and Nagini. Snape said he'd question Bellatrix tomorrow, although if she had not been entrusted with the cup's safekeeping, there could be trouble.

This was almost turning out to be too easy. Harry knew that, without his twisted luck and subsequent intervention, things in this world could have gone very differently. He couldn’t believe how careless Dumbledore had been -- so secretive that he’d taken knowledge of the Horcruxes to his grave.

And this Harry, he’d paid for Dumbledore's concealment with more than his life, hadn’t he?

"I’ve been thinking," Harry paused and scowled when Snape looked like he was going to say something nasty. Snape must have bit his tongue so Harry continued. "When I defeated my Voldemort, I was master of the Elder Wand he used against me. That’s partly why I didn’t die; his spells didn’t work properly."

The sneer on Snape's face turned into a look of surprise; Snape was obviously unaware of the Elder Wand so Harry explained a bit more thoroughly about what had happened on the Tower and about subsequently disarming Draco Malfoy.

"Albus was never disarmed, at least not that I know about," Snape said. "It’s possible the Dark Lord is master of the wand since his Horcrux killed Albus. Or perhaps the wand no longer has a master. I think it best if we leave it alone for now.

"I expect the Dark Lord wanted to cripple you rather than choosing to empower himself as he did in your world. He might go after the wand, however, if he feels you are enough of a threat. We'll have to move quickly."

They hadn't discussed what would happen after the Horcruxes were destroyed; Harry had just assumed he would kill Voldemort. "I’ll do my part to help defeat Voldemort since the prophecy says I’m the only one who can kill him. 'Neither one can live while the other survives,'" Harry quoted. "It’s just...I’m not quite sure how to do it this time. So much of what happened was luck and I had a lot of help--"

Harry stopped mid-sentence when Snape hissed and grabbed his left arm. "Return to your other body now. It isn’t safe here. And don’t come back for at least a day or two."

"I don’t know how!" Snape's reaction was alarming. Had he been summoned? Why didn't he just leave? Unless he was supposed to bring Harry along to be tortured...Oh god, he couldn't take Bellatrix, not again.

"Do whatever you did last time," Snape ground out between clenched teeth.

Harry closed his eyes and concentrated for all he was worth, threw in all the will he should have used during Occlumency lessons. No light, no tugging, nothing. He opened his eyes and almost reeled back; Snape's flushed face was inches from his.

"Are you still in there, Potter?"

"It's not working!" Harry said, increasingly panicked. He supposed he could withstand more torture, though his stomach twisted into knots at the thought. Maybe Snape could give him a numbing potion.

Snape cursed under his breath. "Drink this," he said, scooping up his cup and pressing it against Harry's mouth.

Harry froze. His first thought was that he didn't want tea at a time like this! Then he realized it must be laced with a potion; had Snape been drinking a pain reliever before? God, what would they do to him if even Voldemort's followers were treated that badly?

"It’s not poisoned, boy! I was just drinking it." Snape practically pried his jaw open and poured the contents down his throat. It wasn’t scalding like he had feared, but a pleasant warmth settled in his stomach. He felt...good. Maybe being tortured wouldn't be so awful.

Snape grabbed his arm and instead of dragging him out the door, maneuvered him over to the bed. "I can delay for about ten minutes before the Dark Lord will get suspicious. He knows I brew volatile potions occasionally which cannot be interrupted."

Harry wasn't quite sure why Snape was delaying, but the dungeons were certainly hot all of a sudden. Snape's bedclothes were cool and felt fantastic against his face, though, so he continued rubbing against them. He wasn't sure how he'd ended up on his back.

Snape's hands -- with his long, elegant fingers -- caught Harry's face and tilted his chin upward so that their eyes met. "Listen carefully, Potter, because we are out of time. The Dark Lord expects far more from me than discovering how you survived the Kiss. He demands thorough degradation; he wants you to suffer for every moment you defy him by being alive. Do you understand?"

Harry didn't. He stared at Snape in aching incomprehension, moaning in embarrassment and urgency when he realized he was hard.

"You have to understand, Potter. I thought I had more time before he called me again, but I can no longer put this off. If he were to search my memories and see that I have been treating you well, he would intervene. I would never be in a position to kill Nagini..."

The assessing look Snape gave him made his pulse start pounding. The apology written across his face was slowly being replaced by a different sort of look, as if he wanted to devour Harry. The sheet no longer preserved his modesty as Snape leaned over him, his sharp and cutting tongue put to better use trailing nips and sucks down Harry's exposed torso.

Harry arched into them, offering the curve of his neck to Snape's dubious mercy before anger curled through him. He wanted to attack Snape, to make him hurt. Or at least have Snape hurt him -- not this dizzying pleasure caused by the man's hand wrapped tightly around his cock.

This was wrong, two men together as unnatural as seeking immortality. Even through the haze of lust, Harry remembered what they did to those sort in the wizarding world. Harry rolled away, skin crawling, shivering without Snape's heat even as he was trapped beneath Snape's body.

"Potter," Snape said urgently into Harry's ear, pinning him to the bed. "Find a way to want this or it will destroy you." He teased the delicate skin by Harry's hairline, then bit his shoulder in a claim of ownership. "If you force me to...rape you, to make this into a violation, you'll certainly be scarred. I know you don't want this, but you need to find a way to let go and just feel. Relax."

Snape dragged his cock along Harry's, and Harry nearly sobbed out his pleasure and distress at the rub of friction.

Perhaps the potion made Harry more suggestible; he tried to imagine ways in which this might be desirable, why or how he might ask Snape to take him this way. What if Ron or Hermione could see him? Would they feel pity or disgust?

No one had ever touched him this way. Uncle Vernon had had too much contempt for him to do more than box his ears. The few scattered hugs throughout his life had been motherly and affectionate and uncomfortable. He had wanted to collapse into the soft warmth of Mrs. Weasley's embrace, to just be and let her do the soothing. In contrast, Snape's embrace was sharp bony lines and jagged yellow teeth, arched over him -- and, oh, how it burned, his touch reaching for the sliver of soul in Harry's body.

He could pay penance through Snape's assault, he realized, and allowed Snape's weight to settle firmly upon him. Hands tipped him onto his belly and pulled up his hips. Wiry legs tangled in his own, spreading his thighs, leaving him vulnerable to the slick fingers which caressed his hole, applying pressure until he bucked for the want of them, for the feel of them inside.

Snape worked him open quickly then, Harry feeling the desperate surge of time as Snape added another finger, twisting the entwined digits until Harry feared his chest would crack open, too.

The first push shattered the ghosts of his past, their burden forced from his mind by the single-mindedness of the act. Snape paused with the tip of his cock breaching that tight little entrance -- either to give Harry a moment to adjust or to quake in apprehension -- before stroking Harry's cock roughly to overcome his body's initial resistance.

It hurt. Snape was too big for him, his cock stretching Harry until his skin felt tight and prickly, but worse still was the intimacy of having Snape inside his body, slithering as deep as he could go until they were joined so tightly that Harry was left gasping.

Harry fought for control, crying out as Snape's cock split him open, his hands fisting in the sheets as Snape’s bollocks came to rest scratchily against his cleft.

He choked at the slow withdrawal, then moaned when Snape breached him again.

"Please," he begged, unable to bring himself to say stop as he could not bear to have his plea ignored.

And yet, Harry desperately wanted to drive himself back onto Snape, to let that heavy heat punish him and push away the stillness of Snape's deep gentle glides. The bruising grip on his waist kept the pacing out of Harry's control, let Snape determine when and how hard they came together.

Finally Snape sped up. Draping himself over Harry’s back, his body was a solid immobilizing weight. Snape's hips started to make sharp, frantic jabs, as he gasped and panted his satisfaction into the juncture between Harry’s shoulder and neck.

Snape reached for Harry's hard prick, which was traitorously unwilted by the assault, and coaxed the head to emerge fully from the foreskin. Harry babbled as Snape mercilessly teased the dripping slit, distracting his attention from the painful stretching. Fevered stroking followed toe-curling tugs of Harry's foreskin until Harry was too breathless to do more than whine as orgasm rushed through him.

"Yes," Snape hissed in his ear as Harry clenched around him in climax, then he followed with a startled grunt.

An awkward silence, broken only by their frenzied breathing, permeated the room as Snape withdrew and tucked himself into dark robes.

"I'm sorry," Snape murmured before clearly intending to flee. Harry could already feel bruises developing.

"You're not even sure he'll look for the memory," Harry said dully.

"No I'm not," Snape said to the floor. "Which makes this all the more monstrous. But I cannot afford to be wrong about this. It would risk everything I have sacrificed, everything I have done for the cause." His mouth twisted with contempt. "Do you think this is the only distasteful act I have committed? Blame your precious Albus. It sounds as though with another year at his disposal, he would have made me even more ruthless than I am," Snape spat, exiting in a swirl of black.

Harry curled into a ball and waited for the pull that would release him and take him far, far away from here.

Harry was upset when he tried to leave. That was his only explanation for what happened next.

He waited for the bone-deep urge to return, for the light to flame behind his lids. He barely dared to breathe in the interim, refused to move, to think. At long last, his soul burned brightly in the distance, making him comfortable enough to let go of this body and move toward his own. With the first step away, he was swallowed.

He floated in the darkness, unresponsive to concepts of self; he simply was. The light slowly grew stronger, until the ray of memories infused Harry’s consciousness. He struggled against the void until he lay gasping on the floor at Grimmauld Place, restored.

This body had not been abused but that didn’t stop him from scrubbing himself raw in the bathroom. Because really, it was more than the filthiness of his body that he was attempting to purify.

Afterwards, he didn’t cry himself to sleep. He didn't. The soap was making his eyes sting, sod it all to hell. He buried his face in the pillow to stave off any more embarrassing leakage.

He woke to squealing. The sound filtered in from downstairs.

Kreacher’s belligerent voice announced, "Master is not to be having guests. Master is wanting to be alone."

"Harry will make an exception for his godson. He agreed to babysit a couple of days ago," Andromeda’s tired yet commanding voice responded.

"Master is having no exceptions. Kreacher is kicking out the Minister for Master."

"Do your responsibilities mean so little to you, Harry?" Andromeda called up the staircase. "You know I've an appointment and I can't take Teddy."

Harry stumbled to the landing, leaning against the railing and staring down at the imperious woman who had been worn down by her untimely losses.

"I can't," Harry whispered from the top of the stairs. He cringed as Andromeda's face momentarily filled with pity; he couldn't possibly look that bad. "I've been ill."

"Harry," she said too kindly. "No one has ever helped themselves by holing up in this godforsaken house."

"Kreacher can watch him," he said.

Her face crinkled in indecision before she turned to Kreacher and gave him an obscene number of instructions, as if the elf had never taken care of a Black or an infant before.

Turning to Harry, she said, "It'll do you a world of good to get out of the house. There's a park just down the street where Teddy'd love to spend the afternoon with you." Hermione or Mrs. Weasley had probably put her up to this.

Harry nodded, and went back to bed. How could he even touch Teddy after what he'd done, what he'd allowed to be done to him?

He knew the aphrodisiac had lowered his inhibitions, but some disgusting part of him had liked it, too.

The memory played over and over like a broken record, scratchy and jarring and repeating at the very worst moments. But there was no mistaking what he saw: Snape and himself, pressed together, moaning, coming.

Harry woke to crying. Teddy's crying. He pulled the blanket over his head and wished he could join him.

A loud sob pulled Harry out of the twilight of nightmares hovering over him where he lay between wakefulness and rest.

Something might be really wrong with him.

Wearily, Harry dragged himself out of bed, the confusion of sleep clinging to him.

Kreacher was trying to feed Teddy who was red from screaming.

"Hey there, Teddy," Harry said. "What's wrong?" Teddy paused in his caterwauling to stare at Harry, who plucked the boy from Kreacher's arms and started bouncing him the way he'd seen mothers do.

Teddy didn't have a mother, though, and Harry knew he was a poor substitute.

"I haven't met you before, have I?" he said. The sandy highlights in the baby's hair were classic Lupin; the nose might have been a match for Tonks. Teddy snuffled into Harry's pajama shirt, drooling a bit. Harry's throat was tight.

Teddy was all cried out, so that left Harry to shed tears for the both of them. The ache didn’t go away.

The decision to return to Snape was not an easy one, but it was the right one. Not because Harry had anything to say to Snape -- he didn't -- but because Harry wanted to see Voldemort wiped off the face of not just this earth, but every other place the bastard might pop up.

That there might be an endless sea of alternate universes...was more than Harry could contemplate. He could only face the battles before him; he wouldn't borrow more trouble. Still, the thought of these worlds teased his consciousness, reminding him he could never save everyone.

Harry had been given the chance to aid one distressed world. And even there, since he was already in need of saving himself, he was hardly useful. His only real assistance had been to tell Snape how to destroy the Horcruxes.

He could not have turned from his path once swept up by fate. With the castle under siege -- where would he have gone, what would have happened to his friends? But what was his role in this new conflict with Voldemort? Snape might have a plan, and with the man's intelligence it was probably viable, but how closely could Harry work with the man now?

Summoning his courage, stretched thin as it was, Harry reached across the abyss for that sliver of soul.

Harry followed the same dark path, grasping blindly for the severed tendril of his soul until he made contact, merged into the body that was his and yet not. The roiling disorientation made him gasp; he rolled onto his side and continued gulping for air. His senses trickled back, and he slowly realized he was still lying on Snape's bed. Where Snape had...

A heavy weight shifted on the bed beside him and forgetting his likely physical weakness and lingering partial blindness, Harry flung himself away from the movement. He landed on his knees, tangled sheets trapping his ankles. His vision little more than a mist of light and shadow, he barely made out another form on the bed, one who let out a low groan. Harry waited, the floor like ice on his bare arse, for a sign, a sound, any hint of the intruder's identity.

As he waited for the armor of his senses to return, a thin, rasping voice called out "Potter," but went silent when he failed to respond. Snape, Harry thought, as he freed himself from the sheets and inched closer to the bed. All he could hear were Snape's rapid breathing and rustling noises.

Gradually, Harry's sight improved. Snape looked terrible; Harry could tell immediately that something was wrong with him. He was sweating and breathing hard, the duvet bunched between tight fists. He moved restlessly as if he had a fever or was in pain. Dull eyes peered at Harry. "Potter," he croaked.

"What happened?" Harry asked, his saving people thing jumping to the forefront. Snape didn't answer until Harry went and got him some water. When their hands brushed, Harry nearly dropped the glass.

Snape laughed. Or maybe he coughed, Harry couldn't tell. "Take your pick. My Lord is displeased with me, and Bellatrix was most uncooperative."

"But that was two days ago," Harry protested. Snape was still wearing his robes. How long had he lain in bed collapsed like this?

"The Dark Lord had another task for me. Apparently, the Resistance has been particularly active of late. He wanted the metamorphmagus' blood in recompense."

"Tonks is alive?" Was his godson a part of this world as well? He had assumed for some reason that those dead in his world had lost their lives here as well.

"Not any longer. How do you think I maintain a favored position? By feeding the Dark Lord faulty information and doing a piss-poor job? I'm the best Death Eater he's got. And because of that, I'll be standing at his side when that snake dies and he follows. The best way to knife your enemies in the back, Potter, is smiling to their face."

Harry shivered. "Then why do you look like shit if your mission was a success?"

Snape's smile was not reassuring. "He was most upset about Bellatrix's disappearance, and I came under suspicion due to our longstanding animosity. Not to mention, Bellatrix managed to use a cursed artifact or twelve against me in her vault. The insane are notoriously hard to control under the Imperius."

"The cup?" Harry hardly dared to ask.

Snape waved an arm dismissively. "Dealt with of course. Along with Bellatrix."

Snape had killed Bellatrix. A ruthless fellow Death Eater. There was hardly anyone more deserving, but the man didn't cringe at much, did he? "Anything to win the war, right?"

"Yes," Snape hissed between clenched teeth, refusing to look away.

"I thought you were different," Harry said. "When you accused Dumbledore of raising me for the slaughter, of using me for the greater good... You said --"

"I believe you're mixing me up with your Snape. Dumbledore never left me with a plan. I've had two years to grow desperate. Yes, desperate, Potter. For the end of this war, at all costs."

"Is that what drove you to drink that aphrodisiac, Snape? To force it on me? You were going to rape a soulless body and you needed a little help?"

"You foolish, ungrateful brat! I did that for you. I am not responsible for your atrocious sense of timing." But, for a brief moment, Snape looked guilty, which was good because he should feel horrible. "You're lucky I've been waiting until there was nothing but that...shell."

"You're...you...what else have you been doing to him, you sick fuck?" Harry shouted, grabbing the front of Snape's sweat-soaked robes and shaking him. Snape didn't resist, flopping around like a ragdoll in the hold. Harry quashed any pity that caused, shoving it deep down.

"Torture, humiliation. Nothing more than the Dark Lord's bidding," Snape rasped. "That empty shell you leave behind may respond to painful stimuli, may react appropriately under Imperius, but it is nothing more than a Mandrake root's cries in response to being repotting. Leave it, Potter. It doesn't matter."

Harry cringed at the image of his body writhing in mindless agony, watched by its clinically detached tormentors who would never show mercy, never allow escape...

It was almost more disturbing to picture his wretched, helpless alternate self being callously tortured than to insert himself in its place. At least he could resist the torture or appeal to their sense of humanity, however skewed it might be. At least they would recognize his pain as real.

This entire situation was perverse. Even if Harry swooped in and saved the day, where would that leave this Harry? His soul was lost. He was beyond reach of his loved ones for good. Was it like being swallowed by the void between worlds, simply disappearing, winking out of existence?

Looking at Snape filled Harry with a sense of helpless loathing; he wished he could hate Snape. That Snape had not thrown a fit after Harry had seen the prickly man in so vulnerable a state was a testament to how ill he was.

"Sir," he said, more habit than respect. "Are there some potions you need?"

"In the lower left cabinet in the sitting room. Bring the entire tray." Harry recognized a pain potion and a fever reducer, but the others were likely Snape's own invention and tailor-made to his post-Death Eater meeting needs.

Harry had to help him sit up. Snape was starting to smell ripe and was in desperate need of a change of clothes, but smacked away Harry's hands when he reached for the row of buttons. Once Snape had finished the cocktail of potions, his lids began to droop. He didn't protest when Harry changed him into pajamas then.

Wherever Harry made contact with Snape, it burned, a trail of fire licking through Harry's tense nerves. The thin chest was sparsely covered with thick dark hairs, the nipples brown with a hint of sickly yellow instead of a rosy hue. There was nothing even remotely impressive about Snape's physique but he had presence, Harry remembered, the thin torso translating into surprising fierceness as Snape's solid weight had ensnared Harry between chest and arms, pinioned under cock.

Harry didn't know what to think. The word "rape" deflated his cock; the thought of two men left him sick and scared, his stomach dropping to his knees. He felt emasculated, violated, and utterly without recourse. But that didn't stop his cock from twitching at the memory of the best orgasm of his life. That it had been his first time being touched that way by another individual couldn’t make that much difference, could it?

His eyes were drawn to Snape's unmarked neck. Here, in this world, intact skin replaced the gaping wound which had spilled life onto the floor of the Shrieking Shack. Two Snapes, and Harry couldn't untangle his feelings about either one.

Confused and preoccupied with his thoughts, Harry hardly noticed the time pass as he waited for Snape to wake.

"How are we going to do this?" Harry asked, determined to finish their conversation even if Snape looked like he was about to keel over. "Nagini's the last Horcrux, and she stays with Voldemort and, anyway, they need to be dealt with at the same time."

"You must remain in this world as much as possible. If you have to leave, drag yourself back here as soon as you can. I believe he will call on us soon...I planted the idea that you were quite vulnerable and that I had a theory as to why the Kiss failed. But if he calls me and I have nothing to bring but that catatonic boy, we might lose our chance."

Harry thought about the disorientation that seemed to get worse each time he switched bodies, that frightful pause between worlds where he was cut off from either. "I don't think that's such a good idea," Harry said. "The transition isn't an easy one. I might be completely useless when the time comes to defeat him. I still don't even know how to accomplish that!"

"The Killing Curse always works, if you mean it. The Sorting Hat would be willing to supply you with Gryffindor's sword at a moment's notice, I'm sure." Snape's gaze was penetrating. "If you even need to be there. I've always said there was nothing special about you." Snape's lips quirked as if he were making a joke, but Harry couldn't tell whether it was at his expense or for his benefit.

"The prophecy says I'm the one," Harry insisted, though the words sounded hollow to his own ears. Hadn't he always maintained he was just Harry, that there was nothing special about him? On the other hand, he couldn't stop worrying that without him there at the final confrontation, something terrible would happen and he would never even find out what. Maybe he had to be in control to feel secure; maybe that was his legacy from this war.

They discussed possible attacks and counterattacks while Snape dozed periodically. Finally, the coldness settled into Harry's limbs, the emptiness returned and his soul called him home.

He never asked about the memory, about whether Voldemort had cared to view it. He didn't want to know if the answer were 'no.'

Floating. Weightlessness.

A world of guilt lifted from his shoulders, Harry knew only the void.

Harry knew nothingness for a long time.

Sometime later, Harry would recall the abyss which had feasted upon him after he left Snape. That was what being lost forever would feel like.

Not painful, no; he was beyond pain, beyond knowing.

Neither did he have any regrets; he was beyond all personal ties leading to failure and heartache.

There was nothing and it was the most frightening feeling of his life.

"There's something wrong with him." Harry heard the whispering coming from his doorway, in the way that whispering was somehow louder and more obvious than speaking.

"I'm awake, you know," Harry called out. Harry imagined the guilty look his friends shared as he slipped on his glasses.

"Don't act like it’s a major achievement!" Hermione scolded as Ron added, "Yeah, mate. You've been out of it for days."

"Was I?" Harry asked. He was certain that less than a day had passed in Snape's company; returning must have taken longer than he supposed.

"Harry, you have to tell us what's wrong so we can help you," Hermione said.

Who said I wanted help? was the petulant response that Harry knew better than to say aloud. He wanted to sleep. His friends were still talking, but he let the words gently wash over his head, until --

"Harry! Are you even listening to me?" jerked him upright, and he mumbled a vague affirmative.

"Does this have anything to do with the Dementor?" Hermione asked. "You're so...blah. It's like you aren't even here."

And wasn't that an interesting question. His problems had certainly started with the Dementor attack, though likely not in the way Hermione thought. Depression was too simple an explanation for his symptoms; fatigue from traveling between worlds was a contributor, but also less than the whole reason.

Fear coiled in his belly at the thought of going back.

He knew what Hermione would say if he told her about Snape, his travels. If she even believed him, she would tell him to be more responsible. Maybe it wasn't responsible to return; it was after all, risky as hell, and maybe it wasn't fair to risk getting stuck without even telling his friends, but going back was the right thing to do.

It was the only way Harry could atone for his failures.

Having spent the rest of the day in bed, Harry found sleep elusive. Hermione thought Harry should 'get his head out of his arse' and study for his NEWTs. According to her twisted priorities, that would cheer up anyone, and preparing for his future would 'help him feel in control of his life.' Ron had again invited Harry to the Burrow, this time for dinner.

Harry didn't want to go there, the table filled with Bill and Charlie and possibly even Percy, all of whom would normally not be eating at home and came only to fill the missing slots. He couldn't endure the awkward silences being interrupted by explosions from the twins' room as George refused dinner and tinkered on projects by himself, or even worse, having to watch George make an effort to heal, feasting at the table, telling jokes with no one to finish his one-liners.

How could Mrs. Weasley even want to see him? It was his fault the twins had joined the Order. He had forced everyone to hold the castle for him just so he could search for Ravenclaw's artifact. And for that matter, why had they needed to be at the final battle anyway?

He had taken an insane risk and everyone had trusted him and followed him, taken a stand against Voldemort on his say so. If he hadn't found the diadem...Voldemort would still have called him out and his friends would have been in serious trouble.

Should he have gone and left two Horcruxes for the others to deal with? Would that have prevented Voldemort's wrath from being brought down upon the castle's defenders?

Harry groaned and slowly sipped his tea, which tasted foul. He'd tried combining the soothing properties of a nice warm cuppa with a shot of whiskey one of the Order members had left in the kitchen. At least his brain seemed to be slowing down enough for sleep.

Once in bed, Harry tossed and turned for a bit longer while, ironically enough, attempting to clear his mind.

When he woke up, Harry noticed three things. His bedroom was still dark, he was achingly hard, and he needed to piss from all the bloody tea he'd been drinking.

After visiting the loo, he slid back into bed, stuck his hand down his loose pajama pants and gripped himself firmly. No spit -- just a little rough wank to get this over with as quickly as possible -- and no thinking, as that always got him in trouble. His other hand cradled his bollocks, kneading them in the gentle rhythm guaranteed to have him thrusting into his palm before long. He was not going to think about anyone this time.

Not the way Ginny's soft breasts felt pressed against him as they kissed, nor the way Ron had interrupted that encounter like an angry bull. Bloody hell. He was not thinking about Ron. The Quidditch locker room was off-limits as well, because admiring the toned perfection of Oliver's arse was queer and he wasn't one of those fucking pillow biters. He just wanted to have a nice, normal wank.

His hand tightened around his prick. He moved his fist up and down his hot flesh, the foreskin sliding under his grasp. His balls were drawing up under the onslaught, his hips bucking restlessly. He just needed a bit more --

Harry clasped both hands around his prick to finish himself off. A calloused thumb scraped the moist head of his cock, teasing his slit just as Snape had done and Harry jerked a hand away in horror and yanked viciously on his balls to stave off orgasm. He wouldn't come to thoughts of Snape no matter how close he was...even if the way he was gripping his prick now reminded him of how Snape had held him.

He should be punished for the way Snape had made him come. His hand battered his cock, pinched the tender skin. And it was so much better this way, drowning out the voices of his guilt, his mind blissfully blank, as he screamed and thrashed his climax and the room turned black around him.

Snape was brewing in his living room. Harry didn't recognize the contents of the steaming cauldron, but that didn't really mean much.

"Look, if we're going to kill Voldemort, could I at least have some clothes?" Harry asked, tired of clutching this dirty sheet to his chest like a blushing bride.

"Voldemort would hardly think it appropriate to give you clothes."

"Well, we certainly don't want me being inappropriate. I doubt Voldemort would want me covering up with a sheet, either, if he's so set on humiliating me." Anger bubbled up inside Harry, but he didn't want to fight with Snape. He wanted this to be over; he wished this were the last time. He almost wanted to rip off the sheet and parade about naked, embarrass Snape for once, but the pervert might get off on that. Harry had been the one to drink most of that lust potion; for all he knew, Snape didn't need one to fuck him when he was awake.

"I'll bet you just like perving on me," Harry grumbled.

Snape's hearing was apparently still bat-like. "Well, I am a rabid homosexual."

Harry's gut twisted, and he must have made a face because Snape continued on to say, "Yes, Mr. Potter -- homosexual -- a five syllable word. Although I do prefer my partners willing."

Snape's admission...Harry wasn't sure if it made things better or worse. He'd slept with a queer! Did that make him gay? On the other hand, Snape would understand these confusing feelings of lust bubbling up inside him, even if he didn't particularly like Harry, even if he needed an aphrodisiac to fuck him.

"Is that why Voldemort wanted you to...why he'd ask you to do something so deviant?" Harry asked.

"That is why the Dark Lord did not consider your degradation to be too onerous a task for me. Yes. I doubt he'd have asked it of Lucius, for example, although that man invented deviancy and would have made an exception for you despite his sexual preferences."

The thought of being under Malfoy's power sent a chill down Harry's spine because he could imagine the torture, the shackles -- the man had a dungeon in his mansion, for Merlin's sake. But more than that, there was an icy ruthlessness and sense of entitlement behind his eyes that, Gryffindor courage be damned, Harry knew he should be afraid of where Malfoy's creativity might lead. And yet, Harry's shiver contained more than fear; he was aroused just knowing how easily a little pain could banish his ghosts.

This was all going wrong. Harry wanted Snape's hand on his cock and, at the same time, he wanted to throttle the man for what he'd done, what he'd taken. And even worse, Harry couldn't stop thinking about it. Craving it and hating himself for not being able to master these unwanted desires.

Snape touched him, his hand resting on Harry's shoulder to get his attention. "What do you need from me, Potter? Another apology? Because I am sorry," Snape said. "More than you can know."

And Harry hated that Snape's voice caught, that his hand wasn't steady. Hated his weakness. Snape was not allowed to be weak, not even if he were still healing from the curses, his pupils dilated from pain or potions. Because Snape was the solid foundation everyone piled their bullshit onto -- from Narcissa's Unbreakable Vow to the last, monumental request Dumbledore made of him. Snape wasn't allowed to break under pressure, he was meant to bend -- changing his morality like a chameleon to stay one step ahead of the enemy.

This wasn't that same Snape, he recalled. The man before him had never committed either of those life-altering acts, but he was the same sort of man: ruthless but loyal, nasty and quick-tempered but a master of silky discretion under Legilimency, brave for all the choices he not only had to make but for following through on them and suffering their consequences.

Choices which had led up to this moment.

"I want to hurt you," Harry confessed.

"Go ahead, if you think revenge will help you." Snape drew his arms to the side in supplication.

"I can't..."

"Make up your mind," Snape sneered, although Harry could hear the defensiveness behind his tone.

It was so easy to push Snape against the sofa, the sheet falling from Harry's grasp to flutter onto the rug behind him, baring his shameful arousal before Snape's eyes. He pressed forward angrily, his cock hot and heavy, his hands grabbing Snape for purchase against the vertigo assailing him.

Snape shakily began stripping off his brewing robes as Harry groaned his impatience. Finally, Harry's prick met naked skin and he frotted against the bony frame, wanting to crawl inside Snape.

"Fuck," Snape said and shifted so that he lay panting lengthwise on the sofa, his eyes scrunched shut and his face pinched.

Harry fit between his legs. With each thrust, Harry's unlubricated cock scraped down Snape's sweaty cleft, bumping and catching against the tight clench of his pink hole. Snape groaned and threw his head back, displaying the unblemished line of his throat. Seized with the sudden desire to make Snape his, Harry leaned forward and gently bit in the same spot as Nagini had, licking away Snape's whimper of protest.

Harry wanted to fuck Snape, wanted to wring more desperate whimpers from him.

But Harry was the one making the embarrassing noises, his release erupting with surprising ferocity in pulses that painted Snape's arsehole with come. Harry sagged onto Snape without grace or restraint, orgasm having consumed the last of his reserves. A chasm opened inside Harry, but he was too drained for tears. Snape's hand clasped his neck, just below the hairline, and the touch kept him grounded. He was unable to escape the guilt, the fear, the contempt as the urge to be hurt overtook him.

Harry felt a foreign presence enter his mind and he was helpless as his filthy desires spilled out into the mind-connection between them. Snape's mind folded inside Harry's, which was so jumbled that Harry couldn't understand his thoughts either.

Snape abruptly pulled out from this disturbed fantasy in Harry's mind and shook his head. "No. You don't want me to hurt you."

"Please, Snape," Harry begged.

"I won't do that again. Find another way."

Harry didn't have another way, dammit. If Snape wasn't going to help him, then Harry wasn't moving from where he'd collapsed onto Snape. Skin-on-skin contact acted as substitute, soothing the guilt until it retreated a few steps back from its crushing grip on his heart.

It was almost enough.

"Show me," Snape said from his position on the sofa. "There are no words to adequately describe a concept like that." Now Snape wanted to see what Harry meant by the abyss and the increasing difficulty with which he returned to his body.

A few moments later, Snape withdrew from his mind, white and shaking. "You utter imbecile! Are you trying to get yourself killed? Do you even understand what will happen if you can't return to your body? Your soul could be lost forever!"

"Don't you think I know that?" Harry whispered. "I can't let Voldemort have this world."

"It isn't your responsibility. When will you understand that? I don't even need your help, now that I know where the Horcruxes are located."

"Of course you do," Harry said. Snape stomped off. "You do," Harry repeated to the empty room.

Snape finally got over his sulk and went into professor-mode. "Listen carefully, Potter. When you leave here, you must keep tight control over your mind, tuck your consciousness into yourself and hold on. It's an Occlumency skill, unfortunately. The mastering of the self -- retaining a sense of self no matter how hard someone tries to crack through. We will practice for now."

After a while, Harry grew fatigued. When his teeth started chattering, Snape called a halt to the lesson. "Your soul is calling you back, isn't it?" he asked grimly.

Harry nodded. Then he blinked, momentarily disoriented. Hadn't he been about to say something?

"I think it's time for you to go, Potter. Do try to make it out the other end of the abyss, if you please."

The bright beckoning of his soul was gone; perhaps the journey had never been lit by more than candlelight, which was so easily extinguished.

As soon as he let go -- seeking his self, his core -- that candle was snuffed out. The black swallowed him up and he floated in darkness for an interminable period, knowing neither body nor mind.

The blankness was soothing. He was blank, an empty slate. Rewritten by the abyss.

Snape had told him to know himself, to retain himself, but here there was no self. He could be trapped, and not even realize it.

Slowly, he recalled himself. Relearned who he was, what being Harry meant to him, how being lost terrified him. Snape's words echoed inside him.

When at long last he clawed, tore, fought his way free, forced himself into mind, body, and self -- awareness burned through him, searing his senses.

He woke on the floor, heaving bile and acid, shaking and drenched in sweat before he knew no more.

Waking the second time was more painful. The abyss had not claimed him this time. He almost laughed at the irony; he would return, and would he be so lucky again?

Aching and rank with sweat, Harry headed to the shower.

Once in the water, he developed a splitting headache. Not like his Voldemort headaches, which had felt like something was about to burst from his head, but a steady beat of pain behind his temples that grew with every pulse.

He remembered.

The last thing Harry remembered was Snape raising his wand in a complicated gesture.

Harry's eyes were wet -- from the shower splashing his face. He was horror-struck, his first thought to return immediately and stop Snape from this idiotic plan, his second thought that he should not leave his body to drown.

Even worse, if Snape had irrevocably started the process of 'putting him to rest' then Harry could be trapped in a dying body. What should he do? It was too early to return for their plan anyway; Harry could not leave before he had his chance at Voldemort as this would likely be his last journey.

Except that Snape had made sure to have the final word on any journeys Harry had planned, hadn't he?

Harry really had turned out useless in the end. But worst of all, he felt betrayed by Snape's actions, which had taken away his right to choose.

The marks on his neck! His hand had unconsciously drifted to rest there, against the smooth unblemished skin. Because this wasn't the body that Snape had kissed and marked, was it? It was ridiculous to have expected a physical reminder -- that such a thing would make it more real, would validate his memory of what had happened.

Nothing could manage that.

Tired and empty, Harry obsessed for days, wondering how Snape had killed his other self. It was, surprisingly, the easiest question with which to torment himself. Poison seemed the most likely, but there was still strangulation... suffocation... Avada Kedavra...

He was haunted by a suddenly vivid imagination. He saw himself grasping for air, clutching at nothing, turning purple, Snape's dark penetrating gaze assessing, measuring the appropriate length of time to deprive his body of air. It's not like Harry's other self would have been able to put up much of a fight.

Did Snape need to conceal the deed from others, perhaps even frame another Death Eater to avoid Voldemort's suspicion? Would he leave the undiscovered, cooling body in his chambers while completing his plan?

When Harry couldn't stand another morbid thought, he finally asked himself the only question he wanted answered: why?

How dare Snape take that choice away from him when he knew how much Dumbledore had hurt him by similar acts over the years. Why would he do such a thing?

It didn't feel natural at first, getting up every day. He didn't want company, smiling sent a pang through him, voices were too loud. Sometimes his friends stayed for hours until Harry was well past his breaking point, until the fatigue of company sent his mind wandering and his lids drooping. He was so thankful they were alive; he couldn't understand why seeing them was so hard.

For a while, Harry traveled 'to find himself.' He didn't mind being alone and it was easier to get out of bed in new and strange places. It made appreciating his friends easier.

Nothing after the war came easily or quickly. So for a long time, he pretended, getting up every day in imitation of how he should be feeling. With the love of his friends and an extremely discreet counselor, Harry learned ways to exorcise his demons without falling back on any of his darker impulses.

And Harry spent every Sunday with his godson.

"Up!" Teddy said, and Harry picked him up, swinging the little monkey until he squealed. Teddy smiled toothily and Harry surprised himself by thinking it will get better.

Slowly, it did.

Harry dreamed.

Sometimes Harry yelled, other times he pummeled Snape with his fists cracking the skin of his knuckles on the unresisting man. Once, they held each other in that hated bed and yet other times, Harry pushed Snape to his knees, or onto his back, slid his cock deep, and made Snape cry out. Pain or pleasure, the sound was for Harry alone, filling him with need.

If Harry woke up hard to thoughts of Snape, he would wank with rough, eye-watering tugs on his prick, scraping the spongy head with his nail, grinding the heel of his hand into his perineum. The pain didn't detract from the spine-tingling pleasure of it, and orgasm would leave him gasping, his vision dotted with black.

Sometimes Harry's dreams were swirls of rage and hunger. Snape using his body to win the war, unwilling to risk Voldemort's wrath; Snape sending Harry home for good, unwilling to risk his soul's loss.

By day, Harry tried his best not to obsess about the man who had only once called him Harry. A man whose bravery would go unrecognized, whose sacrifice left his very fate a mystery.

Epilogue: 8 Years Later

Harry sat beside the plot he'd purchased for Snape in the little graveyard at Godric's Hollow. It had seemed the least he could do. Though he wasn't sure he'd made the gesture for the right Snape.

He listened to the peace that surrounded him here -- the trill of a nesting bird, the rustle of grass in the light breeze.

At least it was a good place to rest.

"Snape..." he faltered. This was harder than he'd thought it would be, but he'd already put off this visit for years.

"You were right, I was being stupid." Harry paused. All those things he'd wanted to say seemed stupid, even trite when faced with the unforgiving stone. He leaned forward, tracing the name that was the only thing he'd had carved into the headstone.

Yes, Snape had ruthlessly taken away Harry's ability to choose his path -- if risking the abyss was worth indulging his 'saving people thing.' And it was a good thing he had, because Harry knew what his choice would have been and he finally understood what he had risked.

A cry from beside him drew Harry from his musing. Lifting up his beautiful, days old son, Harry said, "I wanted you to meet someone. Severus Snape, this is Albus Severus Potter."

THE END

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