Acceptable Losses

Chapter 2

Running through my veins

"Did you find anything?" Hermione asked. Her anxious brown eyes, her pale forehead and her riot of brown hair were the only things visible above the thick volume she was reading. Realising after the war that she had been without education for a whole year, she had - of course - panicked. At least until Ron mildly pointed out that the Ministry had decided to declare the last year at Hogwarts invalid due to the circumstances, so she hadn't really missed anything, nor was she likely to be expelled. And sure enough, their Hogwarts letters arrived with owlpost like they always had, and Hermione had set to work with learning everything she needed to know before the year had even started.

Not that she needed it, of course. She had been declared a hero along with Harry and received the Order of Merlin, first class; there was no place in the whole Wizarding World where she would be turned down if she came looking for a job, no university or college that would frown upon her lack of grades. But what did that matter to Hermione? She would never feel qualified enough if she hadn't left school with straight O's for her NEWTs. She had explained this with such earnestness in her voice that Ron had laughed fondly and tickled her, calling her nitpicky and obsessive, but Harry could understand what she meant.

Nonetheless, he wasn't sure he wanted to go back. How was he supposed to cope, walking the corridors again, remembering the people who died there... Reliving over and over again those few, brutal seconds when Fred was blasted out of their lives forever... Seeing the shadows of the dead on the floors that could never be washed clean of the faint scent of blood...

And how could he ever walk into the Potion's classroom without seeing the empty space that Severus Snape had left behind? How was he supposed to ever be able to walk past the door to the Headmaster's office without that surge of frustration, that bitter and desperate longing for more time?

There was always so little time, it seemed.

No time for him to remember with his parents. No time with Sirius before he too was swept away. No time for Tonks and Remus and their son to be a family. No time for Fred to ever become more than a youth. No time for Harry to get to know Albus Dumbledore as he felt he ought to have done. No time to tell Snape... something. Anything. Whatever it took for him not to hate Harry, or rather the bitter loneliness of his that Harry personified by being the ultimate testimony of that it was James, and not him; always and for ever James, and not him...

Harry shook his head; he was tired, wanted to sleep.

"Nothing?" Hermione said, looking sympathetic. Harry jumped, remembering where he was.

"What? Oh, yes, some things. Letters. From... my mother. Letters from her."

"Well, that's nice, isn't it? What were they like?"

Harry smiled bleakly and sat down. "Badly spelled, for starters. She wrote most of them during a winter holiday, when she was at home with her parents and Snape was staying at Hogwarts. She was fourteen then. I don't think she was very fond of writing, for except those written that winter there weren't very many letters. I suppose, since they lived quite close to each other, there wasn't any real need to write."

Hermione had closed her book while he was speaking, and now tilted her head gently as she watched him attentively. "Anything else?"

"A sketch of her face. And one of the books that were confiscated was from her." Harry tried to sound offhand, but didn't fully manage. However small, these were still traces of his mother's life, and the life of a man that loved her. The excitement that came with these findings was however somewhat dampened by the largest of his finds. He wished he hadn't opened Alice in Wonderland in the first place, and still he was somehow glad he had. And that didn't make sense at all, but then, neither did what he had read in those letters so far. The only way of finding out what he felt about them was to read more.

"So, what aren't you telling me, Harry Potter?" Hermione was giving him a shrewd look and drumming her fingers against the table.

"What?" Harry had a feeling that his attempt to look innocent wouldn't win any awards, for Hermione only sighed and shook her head.

"It's fine if you don't want to tell me, Harry," she said patiently "but you should know better than trying to trick me that there is nothing troubling you. I've spent far too many years trying to figure out when something is upsetting you to be fooled, you know."

Harry pulled a sour face and rested his head in his hands. "Yes, thank you, a pair of less perceptive best friends would be nice," he muttered to the world in general.

"You'd really choose to call Ronald 'perceptive'?" Hermione asked, amused.

"Okay, okay. Point taken. One less perceptive friend, then."

She laughed, but it was a kind sort of laugh, and her eyes were warm and concerned. "I hope you'll tell me what's bothering you, Harry," she said solemnly. "Not now, perhaps, but later. Whenever you feel up to it."

Harry nodded. "I will. It's just... I want to know everything, before... I wouldn't want... Knowing only parts of it would give an unjust view on... a lot of things. I think. I'm sorry, I'm rambling, but..."

"No, it's alright Harry, I understand. You don't want me to draw the wrong conclusions, right?"

"Something like that."

"You mean... like you did with Dumbledore?"

"That wasn't necessary."

"Wasn't it?"

Harry tried to scowl, but it turned into a resigned grin. "I suppose it might've been. A little."

"Well, whenever you feel ready, as I said. I wouldn't want to have my prior view of Snape re-established unless he really deserves it."

She meant it as a joke, he could see that. A way to cheer him up. So he smiled at her because that was what she expected, and wondered how he was ever going find a good way to explain what he had read so far. 'Oh, incidentally, Snape was also shagging Pettigrew,' didn't sound like a good way of putting it.

Unfortunately, it was still true.

***

Later that night, Harry was sprawled on his bed in Ron's room. Mr and Mrs Weasley were talking about adding some rooms to the house, so that Harry'd have a room of his own while he stayed there. Harry, not wanting to put them to inconvenience, had pointed out that he had tons of gold in his vault, even more now after all the ceremonial gifts he had received for 'Services to the Wizarding Society'. He could afford to find a place of his own. But they had flatly refused to listen, and Harry realised that they actually wanted him there.

He wondered what they were going to do with the boarded-up room. If they were just going to keep it the way it was. Nobody liked going in there, seeing the two empty beds. George wouldn't even go up the stairs; he slept in the sitting-room. He wouldn't go back to the shop either. He wouldn't do anything at all. He spent the days wandering the countryside, and everyone tried as much as possible to avoid him. Nobody knew what to say, because there wasn't anything you could say.

Still, as it was, Harry slept in Ron's room. This might've presented a problem at the moment, but thankfully enough Ron was a heavy sleeper, and it didn't take long from that he put his head on the pillow until soft snores started to issue from his bed. As soon as he was sure that Ron was sound asleep, Harry rummaged through a pile of dirty laundry where he had hidden the letters. He stared at them for a while, reluctant to start reading. So far, what he had found in those letters had been very unpleasant, even rather disturbing. He imagined that it wasn't going to get any better.

Nonetheless...

Sighing, he extracted a new piece of parchment and unfolded it. Then he spent some minutes meticulously smoothing out every single crease in the paper, before he finally dared to read it.

The writing was in another kind of ink now; this had probably been written on another occasion. But it was the same flowing handwriting, and it picked up the story more or less where it had been left...

As you know, I didn't tell my friends about what had happened during the winter holiday. How could I? They didn't even know about my inclinations towards men, and they certainly didn't know about my crush on you. I kept things like that to myself even in normal cases, and what had happened with you was special. I couldn't tell a living soul.

Don't imagine it was easy. Whatever you might've thought about them, I loved my friends, I trusted them, and I was sure they trusted me. I suppose this was the first betrayal of trust you inspired in me.

What I did wasn't lying; it was worse than that. Lying would have been better than not saying anything at all. And at the beginning, that was all I could think about. Slowly, as the days went by, I learnt to cope with it, little by little, but right then you decided to enter my life once more.

You have to understand that up to that moment I was convinced that whatever we had that night ended the following morning. When I came back to Hogwarts, you didn't even look at me once. Thus I assumed that you didn't want to have anything to do with me; you probably regretted that night and wanted to forget about it. And while that hurt me, it didn't surprise me. Nothing had really changed. Or so I thought.

***

It was rather late in the evening, and Peter was returning from two humiliating hours of Remedial Transfiguration. The only reason he had managed to scrape an E at the OWLs was that there had been so many questions concerning morphing of the own body on the theoretical exams. That was the only part of Transfiguration that he had even the vaguest grasp on. He began to wish that he hadn't signed up for the NEWT class, but in a small attack of misdirected pride he had decided that he would stand yet another year of the hated subject rather than being the only one of the four of them to give it up.

Of course, they didn't understand that. James would just roll his eyes and mutter that it was his own fault, so stop whining about it; Sirius teased him about it and said that he must be the first Animagus ever to flunk on a Transfiguration test; Remus looked faintly bemused, and tried to help him the best he could, even though it was obvious that he thought it was rather pointless. Peter couldn't blame him. McGonagall was obviously convinced that he was a hopeless case, and rather stupid too. At least Remus didn't question his intelligence - or if he did, he hid it well.

Peter knew he wasn't stupid. He might be ugly, awkward and fumbling - he knew he was - but he wasn't stupid. And he wasn't completely incompetent at every subject. It was just that compared to James and Sirius, who were naturally good at everything they did, and Remus, who studied until he was at least as good... well, he came up rather short. Literally. And unfortunately for Peter, being their friend meant that you were constantly being compared to them.

And there his train of thought was interrupted, as he was suddenly slammed with incredible force into the wall. Blue-black flowers danced across his eyes and he felt someone holding him in a vice-grip, strong, hard fingers pushing him against the cold stone of the walls. He struggled against whoever it was holding him, but he might as well have tried to wrestle Time itself, so instead he opened his mouth to scream. And was shocked into absolute stillness as a warm, greedy mouth was closed over his, a clever tongue darting in to touch his.

When the kiss ended he stared in silence up at Snape, who in turn smirked at him. The dark eyes were dancing, no doubt laughing at the strange mixture of admiration, surprise and terror that Peter couldn't keep from his gaze.

"We meet again, little mouse," he mumbled softly, and against his will a small smile made Peter's lips twitch.

'Little mouse,' indeed!

"S-so it would seem." He wished he had just half of Snape's self-control! But he might as well wish that he was tall and handsome; it amounted to about the same thing. He swallowed hard. "I... I thought..." But he didn't know how to explain that he had been sure that Snape would never look at him, except to curse him, ever again.

"Did you?" Snape asked loftily. "Was it very painful?" He was staring down at Peter with a strange, predatory expression carved upon the rough features of his face, and Peter felt himself blushing. But he could not turn his gaze away.

Peter knew that most people considered Snape ugly, and he could see what they meant. But Snape went right through the definitions of ugliness and came out on the other side, earning some strange kind of beauty from the forbidding harshness of his exterior. There was a sort of dark attraction in his skeletal body, his deathly paleness, the neglected black hair, the chilling darkness of his eyes. He appealed to the eye as did a wild and dangerous thing; like a wolf, or a range of rugged, sharp cliffs; like the edge of a knife, or the blinding light that followed a curse.

"I... Why?" Peter hated himself for asking that question, but he had to know. "I mean... you hate me, don't you?" And even if you didn't... Why me? Look at me. When there's everyone else, why me?

Snape shrugged. "Well, you're one of them aren't you? I might as well ask why you kissed me."

Because I love you, you idiot. And I'm sure as hell that you don't love me. "I... wanted it," was all he could manage.

"All of it?" Snape breathed, leaning closer, and Peter both winced and pulled closer, at the same time drawn and repelled.

"...yes. All of it." He blushed, amazed at what he was saying, or rather that he dared to say it. Snape's hot breath over his face made him shiver and his body to react violently. He tried to squirm away, so Snape wouldn't notice. But the other boy smirked cruelly at him, and Peter stiffened in shock as he felt a hand grip roughly at his crotch.

"And you still want it, I see."

Peter couldn't answer, only gasp and squirm, and as the last strength went out of his limbs he sagged against the wall, his eyes fluttering close.

"I can do anything I want to you right now," Snape mused, and there was a cruel edge to his voice. "I could hex you so badly that you'd have to stay here all night. And when they ask me why you didn't run away... I could tell the truth..."

Peter forced his eyes open, forced himself to stare into the wall of inscrutable darkness that was all he could see in the other boy's eyes. "You won't," he whispered.

"Won't I? Indeed. And why is that?"

"Because then," he swallowed, his mouth dry, "you would lose the power you have over me now." Although still pleasurable, Snape's grip was tightening and becoming increasingly painful; yet he stood still, seduced by the fierceness in the other boy's expression. The black eyes were roving over his face, searching for something, and for a short second Peter imagined that he could actually see an ever so faint shadow of bewilderment. But a second later, there was yet again nothing but blackness, empty as the sky, deep as a grave. Thin, white lips curled into a smirk.

"My, my. It actually thinks," Snape whispered and though his voice was mocking, his countenance was more relaxed. His fingers loosened their grip and slid upward to rest against Peter's neck, lifting his face to be examined. "Who would've guessed? But a lack of spine obviously does not mean that there is a lack of brain."

Peter blushed, yet he would not avert his gaze, but tried through it to throw all the defiance he could muster back at Snape. This one thinks, he thought, but does the other one feel?

And then, suddenly, Snape let go of him. Peter immediately lost his balance, stumbling to his hands and knees. He heard footsteps echo in the corridor, as Snape strode away.

"Wait." He had meant it to be a shout, but it came out as a whisper. Nonetheless, the footfalls stopped, and as Peter looked up he saw Snape standing a bit down the corridor, his back still to him.

"There will be time later," he said, his voice so soft that Peter had to strain his ears to hear it. "I have to go now."

He continued down the corridor, looking impossibly graceful for someone who usually moved with all the awkwardness of an overgrown bug. Peter didn't dare call after him again, or try to catch up with him. So he got slowly to his feet and set off in the opposite direction, even if that meant going the long way round.

And as he felt his bruised body ache, his heart lifted with joy.

He came back to me!

***

You came back to me. Why? Maybe it really was the power you had over me. I know you liked to think so. But there was another intention, another reason, wasn't there? And I don't think you ever let go of it with your mind, not even for one second. It was always there, just barely hidden beneath the surface. If I had looked for the signs, they would've been painfully obvious.

I didn't. I trusted you, because I wanted to trust you. I wanted so badly for you to feel what I felt, and so I imagined that you did. I spun frail dreams around us to make the person that was me more appealing, more likeable, more like an idea of me than an actual human being. You were supposed to lift me up, to take me out of the person I was. And it is true that I was a fool to believe that you would fulfil my every expectation, but it would take long for me to find out just how foolish.

Right then, right there, I saw how the impossibility of love was suddenly made possible, and the air around me positively shimmered with the castles that my dreams built.

Harry swallowed hard, stuffing the letter back in the envelope. This just couldn't be right. It had to be a lie. He had seen Severus Snape's last thoughts, and there was no doubt in his mind that the man had always loved his mother.

On the other hand, it hardly made sense that Pettigrew would be lying about this in a private letter to Snape, the only one in the whole world that would logically know that it wasn't true.

And what was getting even more on Harry's nerves was that he remembered how awkward and helpless he had been in the beginning with both Cho and Ginny, and how he had been determined to hide from Ron what he felt about his little sister... And he was beginning to wonder if the Pettigrew described in the letters - the teenage Pettigrew, trying to keep from his friends that he fancied their worst enemy - was much different from that.

But no, Harry reminded himself. He would never cheer his friend on if they tried to bully someone, especially if he happened to be in love with that person.

But he couldn't avoid the thought that there was a difference between a spineless bully and a traitor and Death Eater. Despite himself, Harry wondered things had changed.

Stuffing the letters under his mattress, he turned in bed, staring into the darkness outside the window. He couldn't let this rest. He was going back to the Ministry Storage of Confiscated Artefacts tomorrow. And if he didn't find anything there, he was going to look through Spinners End for himself.

He wanted the truth. That is, he wanted it all to be a lie. Somehow. How could it be anything else? After what he had seen in Snape's last thought...

But as he fell asleep, it was almost like a voice was whispering in his ear, over and over again:

"If you died today, you would not think of me, not even for a moment."