Unseen Scars

Harry bolted. He heard Auror Malfoy following him up the stairs and tried to shut his bedroom door on him, but the man caught it just before it clicked.

"Haven't seen you run that fast since Auror Redford tried to ask you on a date," Malfoy drawled, shoving the door open.

"Shut up," Harry snapped, panicked.

"What are you so afraid of?" Malfoy demanded. "You killed a Dark Lord, your Patronus -- Parselmagic or not -- drives away a hoard of Dementors, and you even survived Umbridge. Why would a snarky Potions Master scare you?"

A strangled noise was Malfoy's only response.

"Harry!" Sirius yelled up the stairs. "Batman wants to- ow!"

"Severus," Remus retorted -- apparently both he and Snape had hexed Sirius -- "wants to talk to you!"

"You mean yell at me for something I can't control, again," Harry muttered under his breath.

Malfoy's expression cleared. "You like the bastard," he said bluntly.

I wish I didn't. It would be so much less painful.

"Come on, Potter, he won't bite," Malfoy said, snatching his arm. He smirked. "Unless you want him to."

Harry smacked him, face bright red. "Shut up, ferret."

"Make me, Scarhead," Malfoy taunted.

Harry didn't realize Malfoy was distracting him with bickering until they were downstairs. Harry froze mid-retort when he saw the infuriated look on Snape's face. Lucius Malfoy and Remus were looking exasperated, and Sirius was rubbing his arm, glowering at Snape.

"Potter," his old Potions professor snapped, arms folded across his chest, "what did you do?"

"I was only trying to change Lord Malfoy's Dark Mark," Harry replied stiffly. "I didn't know it would change everyone's Mark."

"So that article was true," Snape said in disgust.

"Yes," Auror Malfoy agreed, letting go of Harry's arm. "And if you stop being a dick to him, Severus, he'll remove your Dark Mark."

"There's no if," Harry snapped at Malfoy. "I'm not going to keep someone in the Pack if they don't want to be." Snape doesn't want anything to do with me anyway.

"How chivalrous," Snape sneered. "And how predictable that you chose to make your Dark Empire a pack. Reminiscent of a certain group of pranksters."

Harry twitched. "You don't have to be part of my family if you don't want to be," he said coldly, making a startled look appear briefly over Snape's face. "I wouldn't force you to spend any more time with James' son than you have to."

Snape stared at him but said nothing. Harry couldn't tell what emotion was on the man's face. Frustrated, he turned to the arm with the rolled-up sleeve.

"~Is it possible to remove you without hurting the man you're branding?~" Harry asked the boa constrictor.

~Yes. Did Severus betray you?~

"~No, but he hates me. I don't want him to hurt, and I don't want to force him to be part of my Pack.~"

~Very well.~

The Deathly Hallows symbol and boa constrictor disappeared. Snape stared down at his blank arm, then back at Harry.

"I'm going to Grimmauld's library," Harry said flatly, "see if there's anything that will tell me about Dark Marks." Because books don't hate me.

"Potter," Snape interjected, but Harry marched out of the room.

He had only been in the library a few moments, trying to see the book titles through tears, when someone entered the room. Harry ignored whoever it was.

"It would be easier to find the book you want if you asked the house-elf, Potter," Snape said quietly from right behind him.

Harry yelped and almost fell over, but Snape caught him. "What do you want?" Harry asked defensively.

"To talk," Snape replied, gazing down at him with dark eyes. "And... to apologize."

"For what?" Harry asked bitterly. "Taking points and giving detentions for things as stupid as sneezing in class? Constantly comparing me to a spoiled bully? Reminding me that my parents were killed because of me? Simultaneously calling me a powerless idiot yet somehow powerful and smart enough to do things like trick the Goblet into thinking there was a fourth school?"

Snape winced at that last one. "You didn't mention making you and your parents a target in the first place."

"I don't blame you for that," Harry retorted. "That was entirely Dumbledore's and Voldemort's fault, Dumbledore for making a fake prophecy and Voldemort for falling for it in the first place. You were in emotional turmoil, have been for years, so I also don't blame you for not realizing it was fake."

A falsely calm expression fell over the man's face. "The prophecy... was fake," Snape said in a very quiet, very icy voice.

"A headmaster is supposed to hold staff interviews in the headmaster 's office or in the school board headquarters with a member of the school board present," Harry said bluntly, semi-quoting the school charter. "Instead, he held it in the pub that his brother owns on the night of my mother's bridal shower."

A strangled noise of fury escaped the man's lips. "I will... speak to Albus' portrait later," Snape muttered. Right, speak, Harry snorted inwardly. "I want to apologize for everything you mentioned, because you did not deserve any of that. You should have been able to trust your own professor, and I hurt you instead."

Right, he's apologizing as a professor, not...

"I never hated you," Snape said quietly, startling Harry. "I hated James, and I missed Lily desperately, and you were the product of both sides of my pain. I should not have taken my anger at your parents out on you."

"Why are you apologizing now, as opposed to when I needed an adult?" Harry asked. "A responsible adult," he amended, "because those two idiots downstairs still act like children sometimes."

Snape coughed to hide a laugh. "It didn't cross my mind that I needed to apologize until a few months after the war ended. I could not have shown any affection to you, anyway, as I had to keep my position with the previous Dark Lord. You have never been talented at Occlumency."

"I am now," Harry frowned. "Aurors need to learn it. Is that another fuckery Dumbledore did? Making it impossible for me to learn Occlumency? Fuck the old man."

The Potions professor choked. "Where did you learn to swear so much? Black doesn't have that foul of a mouth."

"Remus," Harry said dryly. "I'm surprised the Swearwolf managed not to swear at all during my third year, at least not in front of students."

The other man shook his head in exasperation. "You spoke as if there was more than one reason you needed a responsible adult."

"Well, other than stopping me from landing in the hospital wing every month," said Harry, earning an eye-roll, "there was also the fact that I was a child who knew next to nothing about the wizarding world yet was being forced to fight a bloody Dark Lord; I was being sent back to magic-hating Muggles every summer; and whatever fuckery was happening to me that year, like Basilisks or Dementors or dragons."

"I thought Draco was misinformed about you living with Muggles," Snape frowned. "Albus told me you were being safely raised by a relative."

"He was half right," Harry said tiredly, "you were just wrong about which side the relative was on."

Snape froze. "Petunia?" he whispered. "That blasted old fool gave you to Petunia?"

"And her 'lovely' husband and 'well-behaved' son," Harry said sarcastically.

"Minerva said your home life was not pleasant, but she never told me-" Snape made another strangled noise. "I suppose because she knew I would confront the bitch."

Harry choked. He'd never heard Snape swear before. That compared with the man's smooth baritone sent a wave of heat down to his midriff. Harry shifted his bathrobe to try to hide it, but the movement caught Snape's attention anyway.

The man stared at him. "Merlin, Potter. I suppose you wouldn't have been as upset by my apparent hatred of you had you not cared about me."

"What? This only shows that I-" Harry cut himself off. "How did you-"

"I was a triple spy, Potter, and a Slytherin," Snape deadpanned. "It wasn't difficult. And what is this innocence? Is the Chosen One a virgin?"

The man was teasing him. 

Harry was flustered. "I, uh. Maybe. Ginny and I had only kissed a few times before she broke up with me."

Snape's lips thinned. He apparently remembered that particular article, too, Ginny's vicious tirade at Harry's sexuality blazing across the front page.

"And Ginny and Cho Chang are the only people I've dated," Harry continued, "as I was too busy with Auror training and then my new job to date."

And the person he had developed very strong feelings for was avoiding him.

"I am surprised that it is me you desire," Snape said, "given the way I treated you."

"I didn't get a crush on you until sixth year," Harry admitted, "and it was technically the Half-Blood Prince that I liked, and I didn't know he was you." Snape looked surprised at that. "At least, the emotional kind of crush. I'm pretty sure every kid attracted to dudes has a heart attack every time you talk. I was fifteen whe-" Harry froze, realizing what he'd just said.

Snape raised an eyebrow at him. "My voice makes you hard."

Harry spluttered again. "No!" he protested.

The man studied him. "Would you like me to change the subject?" he asked tactfully.

"Yes!" No.

"What was the magic connecting you to the Dark Lord?" Snape asked.

Oh, this was definitely not the subject Harry wanted to talk about, but it was an important subject. "Dumbledore didn't tell you?"

"He was not specific," Snape replied. "Only that you needed to die to make the Dark Lord immortal."

"I was an accidental Horcrux," Harry said.

Snape looked horrified. "What?"

"The goblins think it was removed by the Basilisk venom in my second year," Harry continued, "but for a long time I thought it was because I let Voldemort shoot an AK at me before I killed him."

"That's not how that works," Snape said in a strangled tone. "Merlin, Albus is not the place to go for knowledge on Horcruxes!"

"What do you mean?" Harry asked slowly.

"The only way to remove the soul-piece inside of you," Snape explained darkly, "was if you had stayed dead. You are still a Horcrux, Potter."

"What the ever-loving shitfuck!"