Entry tags:

calling in a debt, fanfic, harry potter, hp/ss

HP: Calling in a Debt 8/16
Disclaimers: Neither the idea of Harry Potter nor the characters belong to me in any way. They are the sole property of JKR. I do not make any money with this story.

Thanks to my wonderful betas: Amber, Christine Pierson, darkmoore, munchkinofdoom. I wouldn't know what to do without you.

Chapter 8 – Life is Unfair

Severus Snape looked around his old Hogwarts quarters like so often in the past few weeks. While he was now officially living here again, he had not yet found the energy to actually move in. Chests and trunks were piled up high around the living room. Over the last two years he had collected a lot of little things. In another life he would have called them ballast; now he thought of them as mementos. Bits and pieces of two years of married life, packed away but not forgotten. It had developed into a ritual, to stand here for a moment, reflecting on his life and what he wanted after he returned from his daily tea with Albus.

Feeling forlorn and lonely already, he picked up a picture that was lying on top of the box closest to him. The Hummingbirds were waving out at him, with Harry and himself in the centre. Harry was holding onto his arm like he was expecting him to run away any second now. Severus himself was smiling shyly into the camera.

It was a bittersweet memory for him. Everything seemed unreal and far away. His marriage officially dissolved, he was now a single man again. Had been for little over an hour; and he had, so far, not even been able to decide if he wanted to keep calling himself Severus Potter-Snape or not.

Not normally that indecisive, Severus stayed at the door, looking at his bare apartment. The prospect of living alone had lost its appeal completely in the course of a few, short weeks.

He threw the picture back into the box with a jerky, almost angry movement and stalked into the empty bedroom. There was nothing but an unmade bed, a wardrobe, and two bedside tables. The anti-dust spells had worked fine, at least everything was clean.

The silence and emptiness was depressing. Even after two weeks of being back here, he had not managed to put his things away. The place no longer felt like his sanctuary, more like an exile. Cold and sterile, without laughter. But was this not exactly what he had yearned for? To be back on his own? Not bound to anyone, happy with himself, his own master? So why did he now feel so lost ?

He missed Harry terribly, even though he would never have admitted that little fact aloud, lest someone overheard him and discovered that Severus Snape was human. Only Albus had noticed his confused state of mind and had done everything conceivable to pull him back into life. Stubborn as always, the old goat, he thought fondly. Their daily teas helped him a great deal, even if he would never allow anyone to know

Severus finally sighed and with a sudden movement burst into action. He returned to the living room in long strides and did not pause to look at the heaps of boxes which contained his life. He started dragging every bag and trunk that contained clothes to the bedroom and started unpacking them.

He was sick of having only three robes to choose from. Sick of seeing the chaos that was his life every time he entered his living space. Tired of missing something that he had not wanted in the first place.

While he could have done all this with a wave of his wand he preferred the work, if only to calm his nerves and think. Torn between sadness and happiness at the same time, he did not know what to do, especially without students to distract him from private matters.

Shaking himself out of his gloomy thoughts, he suddenly realised that he was free. The thought had not even crossed his mind until this moment, even though he had dreamed about this very day often in the first year and a half of his unwanted marriage. Severus would have no more obligations. Not to Harry or to a contract he had despised from the first. There would be no more quarrels or painful silences. Free.

Finally.

***

Harry Potter stood in the entrance hall of their house. No - his house. There was no-one left but him. His back was to the door and he was staring ahead with unseeing eyes. The last two years might as well not have happened. Severus had not spoken to him, and Harry felt too cowardly to send an owl. They had parted amiably enough, but Harry felt that he owed it to the older man to give him time and a choice. Additionally, his contract with the Hummingbirds had ended and now every Quidditch team in the United Kingdom was fighting over the praised Seeker. Undecided, or maybe intimidated by the fervour of most of the trainers’ persecution of him, Harry had announced he needed a break and would not play this season.

So now he did not even have Quidditch to distract him from the bottomless pit that was his private life. In a way, he had expected to feel like this. Still, knowing that had not helped him cope with the loneliness.

The memory of the hall being filled with boxes and chests of Severus’ belongings made Harry ache terribly. Everything had gone wrong. He had not wanted it to be like this. It had been the nightmare of his youth and a terror in his fight against Voldemort. To live alone and die alone.

Maybe Dumbledore was right. Maybe it was time to return home. To his real home. There was nothing in this house to hold him. Slowly turning around he went to the small owl-house outside. He would send Hedwig back with a confirmation and start packing. She would be happy to go back as well, he was sure of that.

***

Middle of August

“You did what?”

Shocked, Severus blinked at Albus, both his hands clenching around the hot teacup as he tried to handle the newest revelation. Times like this he seriously doubted the old headmaster’s mental stability. “Why in Merlin’s name would you even consider Harry Potter for the post of Defence against the Dark Arts?” Porcelain shattered and the hot brew splashed down the front of his robes.

“Severus!” Albus reacted quickly, cleaning his Potions Master’s hands with the wave of his wand and conjuring up a bowl of cold water with ice to cool the reddened fingers. The robes were cleaned and dried with a third uttered spell. “Do be careful, you could get hurt.”

Severus allowed Albus to tend to the burns, barely noticing what had happened. He was too dazed at the prospect of working together with Harry. “You can’t really mean to offer him a job.”

“Why not? He did fight Voldemort – and won. What better credentials for the post?” Even though Albus’ words were said jokingly there was an unsaid question in the older wizard’s eyes.

Removing his hand from the cooling ice water, Severus hugged himself, “Because he is my ex-husband?” Too lost in himself, he did not see Albus’ sad smile. “He can’t teach here, I’d have to see him.”

Albus looked seriously at Severus for a long moment until realisation dawned on him. “Severus, you are your own worst enemy. You care about him deeply, you always did. Don’t try and tell me otherwise. We both know it would be a lie. Why don’t you acknowledge that? You cared for the father, and you care for the son. Whatever made you project James’ failings onto Harry, I don’t know. Our lives are too long to live alone. Or is that really what you want? To waste away from loneliness?”

The Potion Master looked up; it was not so much what Albus had said, but the tone of his voice. A terrible sadness had sounded through, sadness for Severus. “Albus –“

“Listen to me, my boy. You are still young enough to start over, to have a family. Why do you feel the need to suffer? Why are you punishing yourself? For a mistake you made in your youth? Severus, you have been punished enough. You have done everything you could to redeem what you did without losing yourself. What more can be expected from you?” The passion in Albus’ voice and the fire in his eyes made Severus want to cry. “I’ve been trying to show you this for quite some time now, but you always shut your eyes and close your ears. Forgive yourself, then maybe you will have a chance at happiness. A real one this time.”

Severus had to look away from the headmaster’s face to keep his feelings under rigid control, “Always assuming that I deserve happiness.” A feeling of relief swept through him when he managed to keep his voice steady. He looked down at his hands, which were worrying at the hem of his left sleeve. The pain from the slight burns helped him focus his thoughts.

“Oh, Severus,” Albus whispered and put a hand on Severus’ right shoulder in sympathy. “You deserve to be happy.”

Suddenly the room became too small, the walls seeming to move closer by the second. He had to get out of there. Desperate for room, Severus jumped up and ran to the door, unheeding of anything else Albus had to say.

He fled through the empty corridors of the school without minding what way he went. He had no real goal, and even if there had already been students, he would not have noticed them. He was not in the mood to intimidate or to scowl at them to keep up the farce that was his life.

“Do I really?” He flinched at the sound of his own voice. Am I really punishing myself? Conceding this to himself was easier than confessing it to Albus, “There is not enough punishment for idiocy and stupidity.” He had tried to show his students that a moment of inanity could very well have dire consequences. Make a mistake in Potions and you are going to suffer for it. Life did not punish mistakes lightly either. Make a mistake outside of school and it might require payment in blood.

”Stop punishing yourself.” Albus words were echoing through his head endlessly. Had there been a time when he had not punished himself? Maybe when his parents had still been alive. When someone had loved him without conditions. Before he had had to fight for everything. Before he had been first tempted and charmed, then used ruthlessly. When he had still been innocent.

Being manipulated had become normal to him. Albus himself manipulated him from time to time, albeit Severus had to acknowledge that these manipulations were for his own good. Most of the time anyway. Sometimes he thought that Albus did it just for the fun of it, or to keep practising, He had not decided which it was yet.

Severus wished fervently that he could disclaim any truth in Albus’ statements and questions, but it would have been a lie. He had been lying to himself for so long that he believed the lie to be truth. Finally tears started to come. “Why am I doing this to myself?” Depression, loneliness, both a central part of his life. Punishment for things long past. Redemption sought for mistakes done in another life. “I want to be happy,” he whispered forlornly into the darkness. “I do want to be happy.”

He leaned against the cold stone wall and slid down to sit on the floor, hugging his knees to himself. Thankful for the darkness, he allowed himself to wallow in his self-pity for the first time in decades.

It was the hardest thing he had ever done, but he finally managed to pull himself together. Looking around for the first time since he had fled the headmaster’s office he recognised the Gryffindor tower. He had only been there once before, when Dumbledore had given him a tour of the school after he had become a teacher.

The common-room had not changed over the years; the rugs looked a little more washed out and some pieces of the furniture he remembered clearly were missing. Everything changed, the common rooms, the students, some of the teachers – everything changed, but he stayed the same. A hated, bitter old man.

Even in his emotionally exhausted state it made sense, that he had come here of all places. In the darkness he was haunted by a set of brilliantly green eyes and by a serene smile.

”You never gave me a chance.”

Remembering Harry in their last big fight before the end of their marriage was painful.

”If I had asked you to give me a chance, to marry me, what would you have done?”

He would have said no and found a way to torture Harry for his idiocy. He would have laughed at the younger man for his audacity and called him stupid. A chance would have been the last thing he would have offered to the saviour of the wizarding world.

There could be no chance for the son of James Potter. Not after what had happened. Never.