Exponential

PART ONE: Delirium

It was ten days after the first term of sixth year when Harry finally had the misfortune of running into Professor Snape. Literally.

Ten mornings of waking up wishing he was still asleep. Ten days of worried looks from Hermione and Ron that eventually disintegrated into complete normality that stung worse than all the questions ever did. Ten days of hating everything and everyone, of remembering times when he hadn't felt that way. Ten days of remembering his life fall apart.

And on the tenth day he had reached his breaking point. He had just rounded the corner on his way back to the common room after a day full of classes, Ron and Hermione sniping at each other (which was now evolving into rather disgusting flirting) and wishing he had never been born, or else had been born Neville. The prophecy had probably been referring to Neville anyway; it was probably just some stupid irreparable mistake, just like his entire life had been.

And then there was Snape. The headlong collision lasted all of ten seconds, while his two friends gasped in horror and fear, and Snape scowled at him. Ten seconds in which Harry tried to decide how best to kill the man that had undoubtedly been the cause of Sirius' death. His defense against the dark arts text lay sprawled open on the stone floor - Snape had just barely been able to catch all of the loose parchments he had been carrying.

"Watch yourself, Mr. Potter," retorted Snape in his usual snide tone, before brushing past them and hurrying to some unknown location. Harry frowned - he should have killed him in those ten seconds, but failed. Maybe next time.

"He didn't take away house points!" Hermione exclaimed at the same time that Ron speculated, "I wonder where the ruddy-hell he's going in such a hurry..."

Harry, ignoring them both, leaned down to retrieve his book, even though he had half a mind to just leave it there. DADA was no longer his favorite class, it had actually become his least favorite. After Dumbledore had regained his standing in the ministry he had invited Remus Lupin to return as the professor for DADA - news that usually would have made Harry jump for joy, but now made him dread waking up in the mornings. Professor Lupin looked as though he had aged twenty years overnight and spent everyday sending Harry sympathetic looks across the classroom. A few times he had asked Harry to stay after class and had tried to tell Harry that things were going to get better soon. Harry thought that Lupin of all people would understand, but apparently not.

The only reason he bother to pick up the book was the slight possibility that there was some handy counter curse contained within that could counter life itself, and because Hermione and Ron would begin a new onslaught of questions if he didn't.

He closed the book, grasped it in his hand, and then noticed a small piece of parchment lying beside it that definitely did not belong to him. He held it up to the light of one of the many torches. It was old and yellowed, but not so old that the ink had faded, though most likely it was enchanted against such disintegration.

'Mercy' it was entitled, and below the heading lay a short list of ingredients, instructions on preparation, and then a caption that made Harry's heart leap with hope for the first time in months.

Note: A single drop causes swift, painless death within ten hours. Exponential amounts will increase death exponentially. May cause mild hallucinations.

Harry skimmed the list of ingredients and then the preparation notes, his heart beating faster with every word. It was so easy; he knew he had all the ingredients in his now unused potions kit except for one - essence of wormwood, and the preparation was simple, probably even simple enough for Neville. It was flawless, perfect, what he had been looking for, what he had needed. A way out, an escape, some rest, some peace - mercy.

Harry casually slipped the scrap into his textbook, but his friend's were too caught up in each other to notice anything.

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Five hours later Harry found himself back in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, giving a final stir to the cool green potion. It had been easy enough to obtain the wormwood, since it had been sitting in Snape's office, and Dobby was always happy to help Harry Potter. The rest of the potion had been unbelievingly trivial - if he had known death was this easy he would have tried it a long time ago.

Myrtle's silvery white form peered over his shoulder through ghostly spectacles.

"What are you making?" she asked, her translucent nose furrowed in slight revulsion at the sickening smell of the potion.

"Poison," Harry answered simply as he bottled and corked his concoction.

"Oh... ok. Have fun," the ghost commented before retreating into a nearby sink.

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Two minutes later he was heading outside with his Firebolt, the vial and recipe both secreted within his pocket robes. Ron and Hermione looked only mildly concerned after he came back hours late from looking for his supposedly misplaced book in the library. From their reddened faces and wrinkled clothes, they had other things on their mind. He had told them he was going out to the pitch, and they didn't even have enough good grace to hide their relief.

Each step he took, every moment that passed seemed more precious, not because he would miss any of it, but because it all brought him closer to the intercepting line of death. It seemed only a formality to him - the last step in some torturously slow process in which every part of him had died but the physical. His hopes, his dreams, his aspirations, even his fears had withered away before him, torn out of him with the force of Cruciatus, the force of slow, helpless agony. But he was no longer helpless - tonight he would finally free himself, commit his first, last and final act.

When he arrived at the pitch the sun was slowly sinking behind the dark forest, the half-light illuminating the empty pitch in a surreal way. He laid his broom down in front of him gingerly, and took out the small vial of potion that now glowed a gentle, dusty gray blue like the sky above. Through the translucency of the vial the world was so much more beautiful that he had ever seen it, all dusty, tired hues of colors, safe and soft, as if the vial was a portal to another world, a better world.

He uncapped the potion and held it away from him a moment before bringing it to his nose. He knew it had no scent, since he had brewed it himself, but he felt as though it should have a scent, something to mark it as being important, being lethal, being merciful, but there was nothing, and the complete lack of scent made it seem suddenly insidious, but he knew it was the only way, and that he had come too far to turn back. Feeling a small, sudden fear spark within him he threw his head back and ingested the entire vial in one swift gulp.

Immediately he began to feel the affects - lightheadedness, slight loss of breath, and a strange feeling of euphoria that may or may not have been the result of the potion. Shakingly he straddled the firebolt and wiped the tears from his eyes. All of a sudden everything seemed very cold, including the slight wind that was biting at his skin and eyes. He took off from the ground and flew high, taking a last look over the castle, the forest, the lake and the grounds. A few tears slid down his cheek, but this time it was not the cold he blamed. He remembered a time when he was happy, when he loved Hogwarts, when everyday seemed to be an adventure, when things were so simple.

He stopped and hovered, taking in all the school at once, along with the forest and the lights of Hogsmeade in the distance. The sun sunk lower, and as the sky faded to gray a veil seemed to lift from his shoulders. He still felt all the pain of the previous year, the despair, the longing for better days, but now he really felt them, not just echoes of them. And coupled with that darkness was a faint light - memories of feelings he once had, so close that they felt real. Within him burned a small, illogical candle of doubt. Part of him wanted to run to the common room, to walk into it, to see the faces of his friends, to see if it would have felt the same as before. He wanted to see if he could love them again, love life again, have hope and fear, have some small glimmer of a future.

He dived down slowly on his broom, feeling more light headed than ever, as if he were slowly losing control. The feeling of being helpless was frightening and comforting all at once - knowing that it was over already, that he was no longer responsible, that there was nothing he could do seemed to lift some great weight from his chest. As he looped around the Quidditch pitch once more he felt his senses and his regret fell in tandem, and it took him a few moments to realize that he was no longer moving.

He had fallen so far, and yet the impact was nothing. He could still see the sky clear gray and unobscured above him, but was powerless to move his head, to change his view and so in those few moments he fell in love with the sky, his last, round window into the world.

He heard the rasp of breath, and thinking it was his own wondered why he had not heard it before. He was so at peace now, below that beautiful blank sky, so full of possibilities that would never belong to him. The harsh noise dulled ever so slightly, softened, and became beautiful to him to.

He wondered bleakly if that noise were the sound of death, but then suddenly the sky was overshadowed and his eyes were forced to accommodate the changing light. As his eyes focused he smiled ever so slightly, or thought he did at least.

"Foolish boy, what have you done?" demanded a low, hot voice that sounded desperate, so beautifully desperate. The invading sensation of hands on his shoulders, a new weight beneath him and above and all around him entered his consciousness, but the pale face never left his view. The anonymous sensations solidified into arms around his shoulders and legs beneath him, and he realized with a great wash of comfort that he was being held by this man, this man that in this light looked beautiful too.

"Boy, what did you take?" the voice demanded again, the anger and frustration fading into concern. From here all he could see was that concern in those shining, dark, forbidden eyes, the desperation twisting colorless lips. He felt the soft hair brushed across his face and decided suddenly that this man, so beautiful, so dark, with such regal features must be the angel of death, or else God himself.

A finger ran across his lower lip in the sweetest caress imaginable, and a pressure seemed to leave his outstretched hand, a pressure he had not known to be there before. The pressure faded into unimportance as that elegant finger left his mouth and entered the other man's, as if the man were tasting the essence of his last breath that had been inhaled so sharply at the sight.

The face turned away and Harry became acutely aware of his weakening condition, and yet all he could see was a curtain of dark hair that he remembered as being so soft against his skin, such a welcome, warm comfort.

The face reappeared, and the hand as well, holding a vial up to the fading light of the sun, the yellowing rays cascading over the iridescent skin, brightening the shining strands of hair, washing over and through that dark beauty, increasing it tenfold, bringing a look of innocence and divinity to what now were eyes of the darkest, truest silver.

Harry bleakly wished for some song, some image to celebrate such beauty, but he had nothing to give, nothing worthy, save his last words, and his last breath.

"You are so beautiful..." He whispered, content in the knowledge that he had died such a death as this, in the presence of one so holy and pure and deliriously gorgeous. As the world began to fade ever so slowly, those clouded eyes abandoned the sun's last light and fell upon him. There was such a purity and strength of emotion in those eyes that Harry felt as though he would die a second death. The lips parted, all grace and perfection.

"How could you?" the voice answered back, so full of sadness that Harry wished to give up his last breath again, but he could not. His eyes fell shut as he felt his head roll back against a strong arm. The finger teased his lip again, the sensations of the world around him fading ever so slightly. An hard, cool sensation joined the fingers at his lips, and then liquid ice seemed to flow into him, through him, freezing him momentarily, awakening him from what seemed to be a deep sleep.

The strength to open his eyes came automatically, and as his lids fluttered open he saw the world dark, in sharp relief, felt the weakness of his body, and the cool liquid still dripping into his mouth.

"No... no stop! Please... oh you bastard... you fucking bastard," Harry moaned helplessly as the strength of his arms failed him, as he realized his weakness and the futility of resistance. His body fell, weakened against the hard body that held him, and Harry cried out meekly against such betrayal, a great sense of loss filling him. He had been so close, so very close, and it had been so beautiful, and all of it had been taken from him. His will had been taken from him.

PART TWO: REALITY

It could have been mere minutes, or hours, or days later when Harry woke up. In the alienated dungeons of Hogwarts it was impossible to tell what time of day it was - nothing seemed to exist outside of the dungeons when you were trapped inside of them.

Everything ached every so slightly, as if he had been through he had been hit by a swarm of bludgers over and over again. He felt exhausted, more exhausted than he had in his entire life, but at the same time very awake. He looked around trying to make sense of his surroundings.

He knew he was in the dungeons of course, but the room he was in didn't make much sense, as it was empty save for a bed and a chair. The bed was large, covered entirely in black satin, with thin, transparent black curtains that fell open at the sides. The chair sat empty nearby, mahogany and graceful.

"So... Harry Potter decides to grace the living world with his presence... How very thoughtful," a voice obscured by the curtain at the end of the bed drawled, and Harry felt an automatic surge of anger so strong rise up in him that he nearly lost consciousness from the shock of it.

"You fucking bastard! How dare you-" he began, aware of the shaking of his voice, but unable to restrain himself.

"No, how dare you," the potions master cut him off with a near whisper whose pure venom made up for its lack of volume exponentially. Harry fell silent under the weight of his confusion. Why should that bastard give a damn about what happened to him? What business of it was his?

"Have you forgotten who you are?" the voice continued on, and suddenly the curtain was shoved aside to reveal the furious black eyes and angry scowl of Professor Snape.

"Famous Harry Potter?" Harry sneered sarcastically, wishing for the strength to jump up and kill the man who had taken his heaven away from him. He pushed himself up on his hands, willing himself to look menacing.

He felt the impact of the hand before he saw it, and fell back upon the bed, his energy and anger suddenly spent. The entire right side of his face seemed to throb in time with his heart and he looked up to see Snape readied his arm as if to backhand him again, but instead he pulled back the curtain farther.

"Such cheek, after all we have done for you. After all that I have done for you. Don't you see boy?" Snape leaned towards him, one hand on the curtain, one knee resting upon the dark satin sheets.

"So I'm the Boy Who Lived, big deal! Did anyone stop to consider I might not have wanted to live?" Harry returned, trying to match the malice in the other man's voice as he squirmed away from the imposing form.

"Did it ever occur to you that you don't have a choice?"

Snape looked as though he had more to say, more insults, more anger, but all of a sudden the man seemed to collapse within himself. Harry stared at him a few moments, trying to draw a parallel in his mind between the man he had seen on the Quidditch Pitch and the man that stood over him now, watching him with a now dead expression.

"You don't know... you can't know what you are to the rest of the world... what you have done..."

"I didn't do anything! It was all my mother, doesn't anyone understand that?" Harry yelled in response, then recoiled quickly, expected to be struck again by hands he had for a few moments thought so gentle, so elegant.

"Ah... but your mother didn't survive, Harry. Lily can't save us now, can she? Only you can do that."

"And what if I can't?"

An unfamiliar laugh echoed off of the cold stone walls.

"It doesn't matter if you can or can't, Harry. You aren't some weapon, or a soldier even. You are something more than that."

The low voice became a whisper once again, but an empty one this time, devoid of its former anger. There was a more dangerous quality to the whisper now than there was before, perhaps only because the words seemed more sincere.

"And what am I then?" Harry asked shakingly, afraid of this moment, the whispers, the truth which seemed so near. Snape suddenly seemed like a doorway to another time, to a time before him, a world around him, a darkness he had only met in passing.

"You're our hope, Harry. And while you live, we can fight. But without you..."

Snape suddenly literally did collapse, ever so slightly into a half kneeling, half standing position, the added weight shifting the mattress downward.

"You don't know what it was like," Snape repeated, "The war, back then. We weren't winning - no, far from it. It was a losing war, you see, and everyone knew that it was only a matter of time."

He paused, contemplating the folds of the dark sheets before looking back up at Harry, who suddenly found himself spellbound by the narrative.

"We fought because of the principle of it, really. We fought for those who had been lost, for a future that would never be."

Again there was a heavy moment of silence.

"I fought because I could not die with so much on my conscious. I could not die with the knowledge that I had done nothing."

Snape's thin fingers splayed out over the sheets, denting the fabric, causing new lights and shadows to fall. Head gradually cocked to one side, he looked much like a cat playing with its prey before the kill, fingers clenched on the soft, innocent fabric as though reaching for something that was not there. The black eyes rose to meet green, and Harry was startled to find that those eyes now glistened deep silver.

"Did you know that I was there at Godric's Hollow the night you defeated him? I followed him there, wanting to stop him - the Potters were so important to the Order, so very important. I had tried to warn them not to trust Pettigrew, weeks before, but they wouldn't listen, as if my insistence that he would betray them increased their trust of him. I didn't know why I went there that night, I could have been anywhere..."

Harry watched him closely, not knowing what to think or how to react, feeling fortunate that the man did not expect him to speak. For six years the man had hounded him, cursed him, harassed him, but none of it was as shocking as this quiet confession, this sudden knowledge that Snape too was a human being.

"I was just outside the house when you did it - I felt it, as if some great weight was lifted off of me, as if I had been loosened from my binds. I couldn't believe it at first - I felt him die, and I thought it was some cruel dream. And then I went inside - I ran inside... Everyone was apparating away, fearful and free and confused, and I ran to him, to where he was, to where he had been..."

Snape's hand suddenly stilled in time with Harry's heart, which was now so empty of all its prejudice, all its knowledge and instinct that it felt as though it would melt away. There seemed nothing beyond the room and the story, nothing beyond the night he lived and the night he died. Within himself he wondered if he were truly alive anymore, if there really was something outside of the curtains, of the room. If this was the afterlife, what was it? Heaven? Hell?

"And there you were... not crying, just still, and watching me with Lily's eyes and that damned scar of yours, and their bodies were all around... but you were there, and you were alive, and you had done what none of us could... you had saved us, and though he wasn't gone forever, we could fight again, really fight. And we could win..."

Harry pushed himself back up into a sitting position and considered what it all meant, what it all was, that he had known this man before, that he had seen him before, that Snape had been there when his parents died, and he had been there when Harry had accidentally defeated Voldemort. Ever since he had come to Hogwarts he had been told about what he had done, but he never really believed. Deep down, he thought it had been some big mistake - he certainly didn't have the power to defeat a dark lord. And here was prove - Snape who had resented him all of his years at Hogwarts, who would never do him a single favor, had witnessed it, at least in some sense. He had been there, and that meant it was all true, that it had really happened.

Harry looked back up at the man - for some reason he had ended up staring at the man's intricate hand that still was clenching the sheet desperately.

"I thought - well, all this time it seemed like you hated me because of who I am-"

"No. Not what you are, what they made you. What we made you."

"But... you never saw that, never treated me like that."

"Not lately... but once upon a time I indulged in that hero worship too. It was... comforting."

"So... What you are saying... I don't know what you are saying, actually. You just told me that I was hope, and now you are saying it is a delusion?"

Harsh laughter rang out, deadened somewhat by the curtains, which made it seem even closer, more personal.

"No, boy. You are hope. You are the Golden Fleece, Helen of Troy, all of that. You are why they fight, those many souls who forgot how and why. But you are something more, and it seems the world has forgotten that, forgotten that you are infallible. Is that why you tried to poison yourself? Did it get to be too much for you? Not being human?"

The words were ones he would have expected from Snape, mocking, cruel words, but the tone was something he had never heard from the man before, or from anyone for that matter. It was concerned, serious, sincere, understanding, angry, and ever so slightly apologetic.

"I-it... it's all too much... I've been so alone, forever, and after Sirius died..."he trailed off, remembering what had happened in Dumbledore's office back in fifth year, when he had tried to tell Snape that Sirius was in danger, and the way Snape had looked at him... and how he had felt later, when Dumbledore had kept telling him that it wasn't Snape's fault, that he had done what he could.

"You still blame me."

It wasn't a question; it was a statement, as if each and every thought was written on his forehead. Harry wanted to refute it - it sounded so unfair and illogical when Snape said it like that, but he couldn't.

"It was... unfortunate, what happened, and to tell truth I expected something like this sooner. A person can only lose so much before they begin to despair," Snape continued, "And I have blamed myself as well. If it helps you to be angry, then be angry with me."

Harry wanted to, he had been angry for so long, keeping it inside of him for so long, but when he reached for it all he found was confusion.

"But you hated him, how can you be sorry?"

"I did everything I could, I swear to you-"

"I know, but you hated him! And he hated you, and you wanted him to go back to Azkaban!"

"I didn't do it for him, Harry. I did hate him, perhaps only because I had become used to hating him, but I wouldn't have wanted him to die like that, to leave you alone."

"But why?"

Snape smiled a lazy, almost delirious smile, a smile that puzzled Harry to no end because of how honest and unguarded and sincere it was.

"I did what I did for you, and because it needed to be done."

"You did it for the Boy Who Lived?"

"I did it for you," a finger, shaking, reached towards him, resting momentarily on his bottom lip, "For Harry."

Suddenly the expression became lucid, became Snape, and the man swayed ever so slightly, reaching into his robes and withdrawing a fiery colored vial. He swayed again and the vial clattered to the floor, the glass shattering.

"Professor?"

The man had thrown out his hand against the curtains to steady himself, his head bowed and his other hand straining against the sheets.

"Mercy."

"Oh... oh!"

Harry remembered suddenly what had happened on the field, how the Professor had done down on the pitch, when Harry had lain dying in his arms, how the man had tasted his lips... obviously the poison had infected the professor, and the antidote now lay on the cold stone of the floor.

It occurred to Harry that he could let the man die. After all, he had wanted to die, and Snape had taken that away from him, as well as tormented him for six years, and had let Sirius die, or so he had thought previously. Had it been any day but today he might have considered it, but today was different. This man had somehow broken through his despair, broken through the Boy Who Lived and found Harry - In short, he had saved him.

Forgetting everything else Harry dropped to the floor quickly, ignoring the swimming in his head, and clawed his hands through the red mess of glass and potion on stone that looked suspiciously like blood. After lifting his hand he realized that some of it was blood, his own, due to the careless way he had touched the glass. It was too late for second thoughts though, and Harry hurried back onto the bed, reaching out tentative, nervous fingers to the other man, trying to remember what the recipe for the potion had said in regards to its dosage...

Note: A single drop causes swift, painless death within ten hours. Exponential amounts will increase death exponentially. May cause mild hallucinations.

A single drop? How much had he taken? How much was left on his lips? How much had Snape taken from him?

How much was exponentially?

He grabbed at the recipe that was within his pocket, hoping for some further clue when Snape's hands caught his wrists. The fingers covered with blood and potion met warm lips that captured them greedily, sucking down the mixture, a soft tongue searching for more relief against cool flesh.

Harry was too struck by the surrealism of the moment to take his hand away, or to move when he felt the other hand feeling through the cloth of his robes. He stared helplessly into eyes that were looking down the length of his arm at him, fingers yet to be released from their sweet prison.

Snape released his second wrist, then his fingers, as his hand moved towards his own robes. Harry moved to rise, unnerved by the surrealism of the moment, still convinced on some level that Mercy was still within him, that he needed the antidote. Incidentally Snape moved in the opposite direction and the both froze, mere centimeters from colliding.

Harry looked up on instinct and found himself under warm black-silver scrutiny that left him confused and empty. Harry had grown a bit over the summer, and now his face was level with Snape's, and close enough that he could smell his own blood on the other man's breath. The room seemed to disappear around them, nothing seemed to exist outside of them, and the slowly shrinking space between them.

Green eyes met the darkest of silver, searching for some indication of what should come next, what would cure this new poison. Ebony hair brushed against and through coal-brown, thin elegant fingers brushed against course tan ones, and the space between them shrunk further as the temperature increased. Soft, blushed lips parted in time with thin, pale ones, and the moment seemed to freeze.

"Incendio."

The hallucination was broken as the sound of burning parchment intruded. Harry's gaze averted to the bed where his last chance at freedom from his predetermined life went up in flames. The partition of the bed was filled with dancing, irregular light, illuminating black sheets that brightened into the darkest of silvers. The weight on the bed shifted, flames died out as they met stubborn satin, and the room gradually fell back into its previous darkness.

"Watch yourself, Mr. Potter."

Fin.