Survivors

By Kalina

She still had Harry’s glasses, and every now and then she would take them out and hold them in her hands, those crooked bits of metal and glass, and she would imagine that she was just fixing them. She would pretend that in the very next moment she would be handing them back to Harry and seeing that goofy, self-conscious smile of his as he put them back on. She’d imagine giving him a little lecture about how he should be more careful – or at the very least learn to repair them himself – and he would roll his eyes and tell her that’s what she was for.

Sometimes she would lift the glasses to her own eyes, and for a moment the room around her would swim. It was the world as Harry saw it - distorted…surreal. She could never wear Harry’s glasses for long. Harry was a hero, but not for the reasons everyone thought. He wasn’t a hero because he gave his life to kill Voldemort. He was a hero for living all the days up until that last one.

That was what she didn’t know how to explain, even to the man sleeping beside her. She had promised to tell him what happened the day Harry died, but what happened that day would never be the whole story. There were so few of them left who actually knew Harry Potter and mourned him, not as the erstwhile Boy Who Lived but as the boy who cheated on his homework and adored the game of Quidditch and was afraid to dance at the ball.

The boy who was forever breaking his glasses.

That boy.

The man beside her stirred, and she almost whispered to him before she realized that she didn’t know what to call him. ‘Professor’ seemed ridiculous, under the circumstances, but she thought her tongue might fall out if it ever formed the word ‘Severus.’ She didn’t know who he was, really, and she wasn’t sure they had much in common. But he was there, and she was glad of it. She was glad for the sound of his even breathing breaking the silence of the room; she was comforted by his warmth in the bed. She yearned to feel his hands on her again, making her glad to be alive.

There was history between them, much of it unpleasant, but the explosion that had demolished the Great Hall and rocked Hogwarts to its foundations had re-ordered her world, rendering most of that history moot. The petty insults and unfair detentions of her schooldays hadn’t been forgotten; they simply didn’t matter anymore, and she could hardly remember why they ever had. To dwell on them now would be like obsessing over a pimple whilst bleeding to death.

“You’re staring,” he said. His eyes were still closed and his voice was a low purr, muffled slightly by the duvet.

“Just thinking,” she answered. “Have a good sleep?”

He opened one eye. “Curse of the 40-year-old man.”

She laughed softly. “It’s all right.”

“I wasn’t apologizing.” Now he was staring at her with both eyes, real and magical, and giving her one of his Looks. There had been a time when that same Look would have given her pause, but now it made her smile.

“Of course you weren’t. Silly of me.”

“Quite.” He propped himself up on one arm and looked at her expectantly.

She knew what he was waiting for – what he’d been waiting for all year – but the words wouldn’t come and instead of talking she crept toward his warmth, burying herself in his lean chest. He sighed and with his free hand he stroked her hair, her shoulders, her back. His fingers were rough, the skin of his hands mottled and stained from his years of potion-making, but his touch was gentle and she shuddered slightly and moved closer. She pressed her lips to his chest, again and again, and then heard his breath catch when she insinuated her thigh between his legs. Encouraged, she reached down and stroked him gently once…twice. He shifted at the touch, first moving away and then changing his mind and moving back again, seeking out her hand. She wasn’t terribly experienced, but she did her best to make him want her again. She wanted him to want her body, which was so much simpler to share than her memories. She wanted him distracted…exhausted…too tired to do what they had really come there to do. That they both found the distraction pleasurable was a bonus.

“Granger,” he growled, and she knew he meant to discourage her, but she could hear the mingled desire and frustration in his voice. He was determined to make her to talk, to make her tell him her story, but his body was betraying him. She mapped the smooth planes of his chest with her mouth, keeping her eyes tight shut, keeping her focus on warm flesh and solid bone and the steady beat of his heart. Like a child, she imagined that as long as her own eyes were closed, she was somehow invisible.

And if only she could keep busy enough, she could make the memories go away.

He rolled her away and then, before she had time to register regret, he was on top of her, pinning her to the mattress. She blinked at him in surprise, and his eyes seemed to burn into her, seeing into her dark corners and forbidding her to hide. He used his knee to spread her thighs and then reached down, probing the slick between her legs with two long fingers. He was no longer gentle.

“Is this what you want?” he growled, and she gasped as the fingers curled into her. “Is this what you want, you little coward?”

“Yes,” she whispered, rocking against his hand.

“It won’t work, you know,” he whispered fiercely. “It won’t work.” His talented fingers had found her rhythm, found a spot just inside her that was setting off little explosions of pleasure. “I can fuck you all night long, but it’ll all still be there in the morning.”

As if to prove his point, he pulled his hand away and entered her quickly, with a low hiss of pleasure or anger; she wasn’t sure which it was, nor did she care. He sought his release and she sought hers, arching up to meet his every thrust. She concentrated on the rising waves of pleasure and let them block out his brutal honesty, let them block out everything. For a few minutes, the memories melted away and there was nothing but the sound of their ragged breathing and the feel of him over her and inside her. They were one flesh, sweat-slicked and furious, existing only in that place, in that moment. He groaned into her neck when he started to come, and then the wave crested and she hurtled after him, falling into a thousand tingling pieces, clinging to the pleasure and letting it sweep her along until it ebbed away and there was nothing left to cling to…nothing but him.

He was no longer inside her, but she couldn’t seem to stop moving, rocking against him. He was whispering something, but she couldn’t understand what he was saying because finally, she was crying…

It had been a year since she’d last cried. A year to the day, and last time he had stood by silently and watched, leaving her to her grief. This time, he pulled her closer and absorbed her sobs with his flesh, whispering soothing nonsense as he cradled her in his arms. She clung to him so tightly that her fingernails bit into the pale skin of his shoulders, but still he held her.

That she had spent two Valentine’s Days with this man was a wonder. She could hardly conceive that they would be together for a third, yet she knew that at that moment, she was where she belonged. She had been drawn to him ever since they met in the rubble of her demolished childhood. They might not be soul-mates, exactly, but they were both survivors.

They were both still here.

The End