Le Petit Chat

NB: Harry's age changes in each 'part'. To avoid confusion, keep this in mind as you read!

.

Le Petit Chat

Part III

.

The Harry Potter who stepped out of the fireplace at sixteen was nothing like the boy of fourteen who had left years before.

The child was nearly gone; sacrificed to the horrors of a looming war and far too many deaths. With that child also went whatever protective instinct Severus ever had for Potter. Perhaps the special moment was the hour that Harry had walked out of Peniwynth and had become just another Potions student to Professor Snape. There was nothing guardian-like about the way that Severus viewed the new Potter.

Harry exuded confidence just by standing near the fireplace and yet there was no trace of arrogance. It was probably the touch of wisdom and pain that was always hidden in the depths of those green eyes that forced Severus to truly see Potter in another light.

Sixteen and already jaded. Severus understood that only too well.

"Bonjour Professeur. Je suis désolé." Harry's voice had changed in the two years since he had left Peniwynth Manor. It certainly fit his new maturity.

"Pourquoi?" Severus raised an eyebrow as the only sign of his noting Potter's presence in one of the many sitting rooms in the house.

It earned him a smile from Harry. Something which fortunately had not changed in sincerity.

"I was hoping that you wouldn't scold me for the late hour or something." The tone was obviously teasing. "It is afterall easier to gain forgiveness than permission."

Severus rose from the chair that he was occupying, careful not to spill from the glass of scotch that he was holding. He approached Harry, who was still smiling, and gave him a full once-over look before he temporarily abandoned the glass on the mantlepiece that was to the side of the fireplace's arch.

"You are here for the art show I take it?" Harry nodded to that. "Then you are not late Potter. In fact your are a good twelve hours too early."

Harry shrugged. "I wanted to see you. I wanted to see the place. I've had to close my eyes to remember what it looked like for so long that I figured that it's best to just bloody come. The art show is a good excuse."

"You could have come whenever you wanted in the past two years." Severus tried not to let his disappointment show but it was hard to completely hide it. "The floo was always open to admit you."

"Maybe, but it wasn't the same after fourth year."

Severus' eyes hardened, not so much at the words but at the implications hidden behind them. His anger was not so apparent though even as he reached for his glass of scotch again and took a sip.

"I see that you too believe the rumours then."

"That you're working for Voldemort again?" The steel in Harry's tone did not match the nonchalance of the shrug that he gave. "Let's just say that I like to think I know things about you that others overlook and in my opinion you always could swing either way. You're not Head of Slytherin for nothing, Sir. I'm not one to forget that."

"Did you come back just to point out that what little trust you had in me is now lost?" Severus turned away from the twin glass of green crystals that were trying to cut past his defences.

"No, of course not." Well at least to Severus, Harry sounded sad if not contrite. "I told you. I came to see Peniwynth."

Severus made a wide hand gesture to indicate the room they were standing in and whatever lay beyond the open doorway.

"Then Peniwynth awaits you as it awaits the soul of every wizard who has ever graced it with his or her presence." He turned away. "But if you'll excuse me Potter, I find that I suddenly lack the grace to welcome you too long into my presence anymore."

Harry stopped the tearing of charcoal eyes from his own gaze, with an outstretched hand that cupped Snape's face. He gently turned Severus' attention back unto himself.

"Sometimes I think that... nous n'avons plus rien à dire... to each other," Harry said sadly. "Is there really nothing left to say between us?"

Severus levelled Harry with a look that was very close to a glare, yet he only abandoned Harry to return to where he had been previously sitting. He took so many sips from his glass and ignored Harry for so long that the younger wizard considered just walking out.

But when Snape spoke his response was just as quiet. "Peut-être... we are... simplement peur."

"Afraid?" Harry asked. "What is there in our words to be afraid of?"

"I believe you said you came here to reacquaint yourself with the manor," Severus pointed out after a brief pause, effectively ignoring Harry's questions. "The skybeams await you Potter or are you far too immersed in your ideas of my defection to the dark side that you would rather not risk me cursing you so far up from the ground?"

Harry's turned a light shade of red at the jibe. He had not practised his gymnastic skills since the last time he had been at Peniwynth because nowhere else intrigued him so much as the manor. It had nothing to do with his lack of trust in Snape and at Peniwynth he would have preferred not to dredge up whatever misgivings laid between him and Snape in the outside world. He considered Peniwynth as a haven. Except it seemed that as soon as he had stepped out of the fireplace he had done nothing but try to hurt the other wizard by throwing around his suspicions of Snape's changing allegiance.

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "Point taken."

Severus showed his forgiveness with a brief nod. "As you might have realized the Manor has not changed in three hundred years so it is hardly likely that it has changed in two years. I am sure that should you choose to wait, it will still be here for you to reacquaint yourself."

"What should I do in the meantime then?"

Harry took the required steps to stand before the figure in black. Even sitting, Snape exuded confidence and control. It seemed only natural that Harry sit beside him on the chair but that seemed presumptuous. So he stood, shifting uncomfortably during the pause that inevitably followed.

Snape rose from the chair, walked over to approach the fireplace where he again abandoned his now empty glass. He turned to give Harry a look devoid of all other emotion except interest as he spoke again.

"Let me paint you."

Harry smiled, instantly. Inside a swirl of emotions attacked until he was at a loss in figuring out why such simple words meant so much. But then, he already knew. To have Severus paint him was always an honour and secretly he felt as if he was somehow always waiting for the wizard to ask. There was no other answer to give but yes.

"Bien sûr," he responded immediately. "As always, Monsieur artiste, you don't even have to ask."

Severus raised an eyebrow. "Would you be so gracious if what I wish to paint is not as innocent as a sleeping child or a lost boy? You radiate sorrow and I feel drawn to paint something that can express the darkness I sense in you."

"Darkness?" Harry looked more confused than offended. "You think I have evil in me?"

Severus shook his head. His eyes seemed to pull Harry's gaze to him and for some reason a shiver ran down Harry's spine at the hollowness of such pools of black. There was no doubt that Severus had darkness in him but Harry was afraid to believe that such a look could one day be reflected from his own eyes.

"Ce n'est pas la même chose," Severus pointed out quietly, before repeating the words in English. "It is not the same thing."

They retreated upstairs to the art room via the grand hallway and the staircase. It felt somewhat strange to Severus to have Harry trudging along behind him with soft footsteps. A part of him expected that if he should look up at the skybeams, the skinny little fourteen year old would be doing backhand flips and risking life and limb in the process. That the child had changed into the enigma that stood near him, was a little awkward for Severus to admit to himself.

"I feel strange." Standing in the middle of the room in the one spot that intentionally was not occupied, Harry broke the silence softly with his emerald eyes trained on a point on the light brown rug, as if enthralled.

"Do explain."

Severus reached for his easel and repositioned it so that he was directly facing Harry. He grabbed a couple of his favourite brushes and made sure that he had enough paint on hand. He could already feel the mental itch that prodded him to get to work on appeasing the desire to become immersed in his art.

Harry took a deep breath, sighed, then raised his head so that the confusion on his face was unmistakable.

"I don't know." He shrugged. "I feel like I've been waiting to come back here and see this room, which I love so much, and for the familiar scent of paint drying and just the surreality I always feel standing and watching you. I've been waiting and waiting to come back and now, I'm standing here and I still feel the longing. I still really miss this place. I feel like a part of me is still waiting to come back. But for some reason, it won't."

Severus looked at him, meeting his eyes with as close a look of understanding as he would ever really allow, but when he spoke it was off-topic.

"Kneel. Try to be comfortable, you'll be in that position for a while."

Harry immediately complied without question or fear. Even when Snape pulled out his wand and aimed it at him, Harry couldn't say that he was afraid. In his mind Professor Snape and the Artist were entirely separate entities. He had his suspicions for the first, but the second evoked feelings within him that was very close to admiration.

"May I remove your shirt?"

The shirt was magically removed with a nod from Harry, who immediately wrapped his arms around himself. Since Severus could not have him doing this, he paused to give Harry a personal warming spell, then proceeded to explain exactly what he had in mind. Harry's expression got more and more surprised, but he did not object to any of it so Severus got to work.

When he was finished, he stepped back over to his easel where he could inspect the live tableau that he had created.

Harry was kneeling, half naked and also half blind because Severus had taken away his glasses. His hands were raised above his head where they were handcuffed together with a thick chain running from the manacles to the roof. Before him, having fallen asleep as it soon as it was conjured, was a lion. Severus had briefly considered having a white tiger instead but considering that the little cat was a Gryffindor, Severus decided to bow to tradition and have the lion instead. Which meant that the snake he conjured was green with silver marking to show that it was to represent the symbol of Slytherin. The snake was twisted downwards, around the chain. It's flickering tongue brushed Harry's fingertips ever so often. For some reason however the snake was not hissing which disappointingly meant that Harry was not given an opportunity to speak Parsletongue. Harry had his head hung, seeming more interested in the golden brown of the lion's coat.

Satisfied, Severus retreated behind his easel again and with a stroke of his brush, became submerged in the vision before him. Dark hair hung to cover the scar on Harry's forehead just enough that Severus did not have to worry about anyone recognizing his model. He had never painted something on such a scale as he was doing with Harry. To encompass the boy, the lion and the snake he lengthened his canvas, faded the lights even more, wanting to capture the natural shadows created. He revelled in the silence of just his brush scratching on the canvas.

Halfway through the painting, Harry began to cry.

Severus recognized it for what it was as a silent expelling of exhaustion and fear. He continued to paint, showing no signs of being affected. It seemed almost too intimate to add the tears to the painting, but he knew that this breaking of the child, was what would make the piece as perfect as the two other times he had painted Harry. Such emotions were so raw and so real that only with Harry, would he be able to capture such range. And only his little cat would bleed in transparent, purified blood.

"Say goodbye to your friends."

Adding the finishing touch to the painting, Severus didn't allow Harry even the time to whisper a farewell before he took out his wand. With a silent wave the animals he had conjured, disappeared as if they never existed. The flowing of tears had only just stopped but Harry still kept his head hung as he stared into whatever abyss his mind created for him. Severus yanked on the chains that bound Harry and watched as the magical restraint pulled until Harry was standing before him.

"The Boy-Who-Lived. The Chosen One. The child who killed himself to become a man." Severus reached out to run his fingers over the wetness of the still fresh tears. The streaks smeared upon the smoothness of Harry's cheeks. "Your tears won't help you now little Gryffindor. Whatever pain you think you are in now, will only get worse. Nothing can save you."

It was selfish.

Severus recognized this as soon as the desire washed over him but as a Slytherin he couldn't think to spare much thought to reason. Green eyes gazed up at him, so alike and so different than the ones he carried in his mind. While he had never ever before considered Harry as remotely desirable, the urge...no ache...inside now threatened to overwhelm him. It was selfish, but in that moment Severus wanted to be the one to capture that last glimmer of Harry's innocence. He would steal the last whispers of that child that Harry had so desperately sacrificed.

Severus tilted Harry's head upwards, and without allowing a moment of protest from the ruby lips, he leaned to capture Harry's mouth with his own.

It was a kiss of desecration. Of one man taking something that should not be his, but Harry gave freely. Until, the fight of tongue and teeth and lips became a dance of moans and gasps and they were two men who sought forgiveness and retribution from each other, without the words or the compromise of their pride and beliefs.

Severus withdrew first, because it was he who had initiated contact.

He couldn't help the way his fingers glided along Harry's cheek or the way his thumb caressed the slightly swollen lips. He fought against the light in the emerald eyes that saw through him and into his secrets and of the man he was going to become and of the things he was soon to sacrifice. Severus had never once felt as naked to anyone or any student in quite the way that he felt as he lost himself in Harry's eyes. It took a great effort for him to pull away, before he drowned forever in their depth.

"You killed the child and it is the spirit of that child who misses Peniwynth," Severus whispered in the space between them. "Don't mourn for him. Do not mourn for what you've lost because in its own way you have found a lot. No one can save you but yourself, Harry."

Severus stepped away from the hardening in the green gaze. In many ways, the wizard before him was just a little more than a stranger then. The child was dead and Severus had watched him die.

He released the bonds that held Harry and gestured for the younger wizard to leave him to his solitude. He listened to the sounds of Harry's footsteps leading away from the room but he didn't once turn around to watch the retreat.

Instead he spent a long time staring at the space where Harry had stood.

The painting of his little cat was drying slowly where he left it, but another painting worked its way into Severus' consciousness and refused to give him rest until he sought it out from where he had charmed it invisible in the room. Then he spent a long time looking at it.

The Albus Dumbledore in the painting refused to move even though it was a wizard's painting.

Severus had been shocked when the painting was completed and yet had remained immobile, but Dumbledore had given Snape a wink and a smile and told him not to worry, it looked great. Severus just figured that the wizard had been casting a wordless, wandless spell as he sat through the five days it took to paint. Or perhaps Dumbledore was too powerful or too special to have a death portrait move while he was still living. Because it was a death portrait in every way. Severus above all others knew this for a fact.

It was why he had been sipping scotch and lost in thought when Harry had arrived. It was why he again conjured up another glass and accio-ed his bottle of liquor. He still had much to think about and a plan to conceive. He had lived in denial for weeks but it was time to be prepared.

Resting the painting gently aside again, Severus walked over to his easel and stared at the painting of the child between the lion and the snake. He ran a finger along the lines of the now dry paint and remembered soft lips and whispers of a moan.

'Metamorphosis' was what he called it.

.

The gallery was packed with strange creatures of the night parading like demons and angels. The masks that hid each person from the other, provided a sense of anonymity that empowered the bodies that swayed to the siren call of the paintings around them.

The Muggles thought they had it good.

The pieces that they saw captured time and place and froze them in a perpetual stance of sadness, filtered through the brilliant strokes of the artist's brush to become surreal but ethereal. Even the darkness seemed hopeful, in every piece they saw.

The Wizards laughed as they walked amongst these naive counterparts and they smiled from the secret that they hid and had been hiding for so long.

Their pieces were of hope and peace transforming into the chaos of darkness. Each piece reflected the fear that many of the witches and wizards had been carrying around inside their hearts. Agony bled from the pages, but there was beauty in each tear that the tiny mobile figures cried and there was courage in every drop of blood.

The artist stood aside as friends and strangers peered at each piece, catching glimpses of his soul.

The masquerade theme had been well planned. The theme of 'Darkness and Light, Collide' seemed adequate to describe the artwork. And Severus knew that the muggles never once perceived that for every one of the pieces meant for their eyes, there were two wizarding ones there to balance the light in them.

Looking around the room, he was always surprised at the amount of people who turned out to see his art. What surprised Severus more, however, was that he could get everyone in a figurative room together and no one once thought to attack the other. The Death Eaters would stand beside the Muggles admiring the same piece and would never suspect that the air between them should be charged with hatred and revenge.

But there was power in anonymity.

Standing as the only still figure in a room of moving bodies he stood on that proverbial line between darkness and light.

At one end was a cat with green eyes and a too-pure soul, whose smile Severus would take with him whenever he needed hope in a world of despair and whose tears Severus kept bottled up inside, knowing that those tears were his and only his. Whatever mangled and corroded residue remained of his heart, Severus knew that he had given it willingly once very long ago in a park on a rainy afternoon to this little cat. And so he no longer had a right to reclaim what had been given unwilling but hopefully.

At the other end was a snake with the countenance of an angel. His silver eyes hid far more innocence than he would have ever admitted to and whose blonde hair was like spun gold mixed with platinum. But Severus knew that this son of darkness was not beyond redemption and he meant to save him from being totally consumed by the evil. For this wizard had been given Severus' soul from the moment of his birth.

Amidst a world of compromise, Severus made his choice.

"Draco may I have a word?"

"Oh Professor Snape is that you?"

"Who else would it be?"

"I don't know. All these masks and costumes..."

"Come. There is something we must speak about and I'd rather do it in private. Your mother appeared rather worried when she sought me out. What we discussed I must now discuss with you."

"That? I already know Professor but don't think I agree to it. I don't need to be protected or helped--"

"Not here Draco! Come."

Each step pushed the artist into the role of the Death Eater that he had once sworn to cast aside. The sound of his footsteps, the curve of his fingers around Draco's arm, the warmth of bodies in close proximity, all echoed like a lover begging him to rethink their plan, yet the cry was useless. Severus had long since known that he was beyond redemption.

But from across the room, green eyes pierced like daggers into his back.

~X~