Sinope's Fiction: Burn (Singed Fingers Remix)

Title: Burn (Singed Fingers Remix)
Author: Sinope at (no spam!) gmail dot com
Rating: R
Pairing: Snape/Harry
Warning: Underage sexuality.
Summary: Things start to change after Sirius dies.
Author's notes: Written for the 2005 Remix Redux, based on Bow's excellent story Burn.
Disclaimer: This is an unofficial fan work. No profit was made; no ownership is implied.

August 3.

The summer after Sirius dies, Harry wanks at night in the Burrow, restless and aching. Tonks floats before his face, her robes parted to reveal supple curves. She cups her pert, pink-tipped breasts and traces a line down her stomach, threading her fingers through fuchsia hair to encircle her cock. Her penis stands half-erect, dwarfing the glossy thumbnail that explores its head; as she leans her neck back, stroking herself to arousal and completion, Harry does the same. When Tonks comes, the ejaculate splatters between her breasts in iridescent swirls.

Harry falls asleep before the wrenching emptiness can coalesce into guilt, but not before he gives the burn a name: Sirius.

August 10.

At Tonks's funeral in the hazy afternoon, Harry remembers thinking about Tonks, and he remembers thinking about Sirius. Everyone I fantasize about dies, he says to himself and fights off a near-hysterical giggle. I wonder if . . .

His eyes find Snape in the crowd, the Potions master's black robes flat and dull in the hot sun, and a delicious shudder of mingled vengeance and disgust runs through Harry's gut. Snape turns; for a moment they stare at each other blankly. Harry can see a thin scar on his temple from the battle where Tonks died.

Then Harry turns away and closes his mind, joining the line filing past Tonks's casket. Her eyelashes look terribly black against her powder-white eyelids, and her lips have been arranged into a surreally peaceful smile. He wonders whether this pert nose and raven fringe are her true face or some mortician's art, and whether it even matters.

That night at the Burrow, he wanks with his eyes squinted shut, thinking of Snape for the first time, though not the last.

August 21.

Lupin comes to the Burrow for tea, complimenting Molly's redcurrant scones and taking his tea with milk and two lumps of sugar. Harry notices the little shiver of luxurious pleasure when he drinks the first sip, notices the wetness lingering on Lupin's thin pale lips. (This summer, he's begun noticing things for what seems like the first time; this summer, it's all that's left for him to do.)

When the last strawberries and cream have become a reddish blush on Lupin's lips, he thanks Molly with his quiet, intimate smile. Mr Weasley heads to the fireplace to Floo back to work, while Ron wanders out to the garden with a History of Magic book as a pretext for napping. Lupin turns to Harry, who's still sitting at the table, watching. "Care to join me for a stroll?" he says, and Harry nods.

They walk together into a wide field of golden grasses, eyes half-closed against the summer sun. When they approach a lone oak tree, Lupin pauses in the shade, breathing shallowly in the heat but still smiling. "I brought you some chocolate from Honeyduke's," he says. "You'd best eat it before it's melted entirely."

Harry shrugs. "There aren't any Dementors here."

"Aren't there?" Lupin says, then looks at Harry, then looks back at the hazy yellow field. "Sometimes I wonder whether the Dementors are nothing beyond absolute absence, the extreme of loss. It sucks you in, twists all your memories against you, as if -" Then he looks back at Harry, visibly collecting himself. "Pardon me. I'll get out the chocolate."

Harry eats every last bite, even when the squashed warm rectangle starts to taste cloying on his teeth, and he can feel Lupin's eyes flickering over him with each mouthful. He thinks of all the things he'd wanted to ask Lupin when he visited - Am I gay? Are you gay? Are there gay wizards? How can you be so bloody calm, now that Sirius is gone?

Instead, he licks the last chocolate from his fingers, swallowing the thick syrupy mixture of chocolate and spit, and says, "Thank you."

September 1.

At the Welcoming Feast, Harry sees Snape for the first time since he began wanking to him at night. Snape's not dead yet; Harry finds himself irrationally disappointed by this fact.

Their eyes meet during Dumbledore's speech, and this time, Harry leaves his mental barriers tauntingly open. Touch my mind if you dare, you greasy bastard, he thinks as loudly as he can. I'm not afraid of you any more.

Snape, if he heard, does not respond.

Hogwarts has a new Defense teacher this year; the youthful witch is pretty and well-dressed, with earrings that tinkle as she stands to greet the students. Harry looks at her carnation-pink robes and remembers Professor Lupin, savouring the Weasleys' tea as if he'd not had sugar for months. He finds himself disliking "Sylvia" already.

Rather than watch the Sorting, Harry looks further upward, counting candles as names and Houses echo through the air. He wonders what happens to the wax that drips from those floating candles, and, as if in response, a heavy drop falls from above and splashes onto his palm. Harry bites his lip in pain, then looks more closely at the wax blot; already it's begun to harden and turn opaque, while his own skin reddens underneath.

When he looks up again, Snape's looking away so pointedly that Harry feels certain he was watching him. The liquid burn still tingles on his skin, and Harry realizes abruptly that he has an erection. Shifting his legs beneath the table, Harry begins planning that night's fantasy.

September 3.

At breakfast, a veritable flock of tiny pygmy owls comes sweeping into the Great Hall, carrying the scent of wildflowers and summer berries under their feathers. Each owl tugs a taut string attached to a huge wooden box, kept miraculously aloft by their fluttering wings, and they circle the Hall as one, finally descending before Harry. The little owls hop around on the table impatiently, knocking over pitchers of cream as they wait for Harry to untie each string, and finally whiz out of the hall the moment he finishes.

The box comes from Fred and George, and it's full of presents: jokes and sweets and firecrackers, with a letter of gratitude to thank Harry for his help. He pushes the box toward his housemates and stares at the words; the twins' handwriting looks carelessly confident, all loops and big capital letters and liberally scratched-out words. The script reminds him of Sirius's letters, and when Ron offers him a chocolate bar, Harry finds that he's not hungry.

That evening, the sixth-year dormitory bristles with hopping Chocolate Frogs and whistling green Everspin Tops. Harry watches Neville break open a chocolate egg and fall backward when a stream of white sugar swallows bursts out, circling the room in graceful little swoops and fluttering around Neville's lips until he opens his mouth for them with a grin. Harry's eyes meet Neville's for a moment, and whatever Neville sees there fades his smile into a self-conscious shrug.

Harry turns away and closes the curtains to his bed, willing the other boys not to say anything. It doesn't work. Several minutes later, after the laughter and crackle of sweet wrappers has died down, he hears Ron's voice close to his bedcurtains. "I don't know why I didn't say it before, but I'm sorry." When Harry says nothing, Ron continues, more hesitantly, "About S - well, you know."

"It happens, doesn't it?" Harry says, and buries his head in his pillow. If Ron says anything further, Harry doesn't hear it.

Later, once the other boys' breaths have become even and soft, Harry wanks himself to sleep. He thinks of Snape and Sirius, both of them; Snape is fucking him ruthlessly from behind while Sirius kisses and strokes him, holding him safe from the world and defenseless against Snape. By the time he comes, Harry's gasping in dry sobs against Sirius's shoulder, against the empty pillow.

September 4.

Harry wakes from a bitter dream to the sound of Neville's snores. He lies unmoving for several minutes, trying to forget the nightmare and unable to remember any details from it. He can hear wings outside his window, like the distant shuffling of carpets; Hogwarts' owls are hunting.

Five minutes later, when he can no longer bear the stillness, Harry reaches beneath his bed for the box of fireworks from Fred and George, then slips his feet into his trainers and grabs his invisibility cloak. The walk down to the lake is an easy one at this hour, while even Filch sleeps. At the shore, Harry looks into the water, lit only by the burning stars, and sinks into the quiet pleasure of casting no reflection. For a while, he simply watches the smooth ripples, black and glittering gold, untouched by his face.

Harry doesn't know how long he's been crouching at the lakeside before he finally rises and draws out his first firecracker. He can feel the fuchsia tissue paper crackling between his fingertips as he fumbles for the fuse. Incendio, he whispers, but does not let go of the firecracker as the fuse burns away. In the hairsbreadth moment between the end of the fuse and the body of the firecracker, Harry feels his lips curving in a rusty smile.

The white light of the explosion ripples across Harry, searingly bright, and the firecracker hurdles out of his hands and shoots across the lake, flinging green sparks like a furious sea serpent. His skin, once the light has faded, feels dry and powdery, painfully burnt. Harry flexes his blackened fingers, then realizes belatedly that a healing charm might be wise.

He casts no charms, but sets off another firecracker. One by one, they rise into the air and explode over the lake, flowers blooming for the briefest of moments. Some shriek, some hum, some crackle; one or two swerve in golden Quidditch maneuvers, whistling "Weasley Is Our King." When, once the fireworks are gone, Harry dips his fingers in the lake water to rinse away the ash, the coolness comes as a delicious shock to his scalded hands.

Harry returns to the dormitory with hair damp with sweat and lake-water, already expecting to be caught for such noisemaking. When he sees Snape - always it's Snape, always - he licks his lips and tastes chapped skin and charcoal.

The one thing he remembers most about getting caught is that Snape's real hands burn deeper than any dream's.

September 5.

During Potions, Harry notices Hermione watching his fingers as he stirs their cauldron. "Harry," she says under her breath when Snape's back is turned, "what happened to your hands?"

Harry bites his lip and ignores the reawakened awareness of coarse wood against burnt skin. "Nothing," he says. "Just scrubbed a little too hard in the shower this morning."

He can feel Snape's presence moving beyond the corners of his eyes, like a tangible shadow, like the prickling of a too-near ghost.

September 6.

Wanking doesn't give Harry slumber any more; it only reminds him of Snape's eyes gleaming black across the Potions cauldrons, or Snape's breath hot against his face on the night of the firecrackers. He wanders the halls in his invisibility cloak, avoiding only the statue of the old humpbacked witch; he knows that if he saw that reminder of freedom and Sirius, he would run away, as fast as he could and as far as he dared.

As Hogwarts' clock tolls two in the morning, Harry finds himself in the Great Hall. The ceiling's night sky looks hazy and warm, with clouds obscuring the yellow moon. Candles still float above the tables, but at night they seem dimmer and fewer, casting liquid shadows around the tables and benches. Harry climbs up onto the Gryffindor table, searching for a candle within reach, but they all bob teasingly out of his grasp.

With a glance around the Hall, Harry pulls out his wand and whispers "Accio candle" at the nearest taper. It twitches a bit, then returns to its serene position. "Accio candle!" Harry hisses; this time, it dips toward him and jerks back, as though tugged upward by an invisible cord.

"ACCIO CANDLE!" Harry shouts in exasperation, and with a loud crack the candle explodes in a white mass of molten wax, bursting over Harry's face in hot splatters. For one frozen moment he stands transfixed, feeling the wax harden on his cheeks, and breathes in quick, shallow breaths.

"Potter." Snape's voice behind him sends a hot thrill of hatred up Harry's spine. "If you insist upon continuing your path of self-destruction, could you at least do so in a less juvenile fashion?"

"All right," Harry says, and he feels the hood of his invisibility cloak fall from his head as he turns around. He imagines how he must look to Snape - a disembodied head, covered in streaks of pale wax - and almost laughs.

Then he jumps off the table and lands before Snape, and he pulls Snape's head down into a hard, open-mouthed kiss. The kiss is messy and bitter-tasting, even more awkward than his one attempt with Cho, but Harry finds that he doesn't mind much. He can feel Snape clutching his arms, an unyielding vice that prevents him from either breaking away or leaning closer.

"Is that better?" he says, breathing hard, and looks up at Snape with defiant eyes. What he sees in Snape's face catches his breath; eventually, he recognizes those furious, helpless eyes as the look of a man unable to resist his fate.

September 10.

Snape's quarters have no candles, no windows, nothing but a dying fire that dusts Harry's throat with the taste of ash. He never imagined it would be like this. Harry's eyes are closed, but he can smell Snape's presence, feel his sallow skin with barely-healed fingertips.

"Touch yourself, then," Snape says. His voice sounds hollow and hungry; Harry focuses on it and suppresses every other thought. "Touch yourself," Snape says, "and show me what it's like to think about me."

And Harry does.

finis.