He was a young one, sitting on stone and cobble, hunched under the safety of a shop’s overhang with his knobby knees hugged to his narrow chest, and pale arms grasping them tight.  In the rain he resembled some tragic portrait taken long ago, meant to draw sympathy and providence, to tug at the heartstrings of cold-hearted bastards like myself and push us into charitable action.  But really, he was just a pretty little boy on a stoop, with small hands and a glimmer of experience behind green eyes, waiting for business. 

And even though he had not been what I had come for, I brought him home with me, tucked in a few steps behind me, still shivering as he followed with his head down.  When I had inclined my arm with open palm, he had smiled and nodded, getting to his feet.  “Ten galleons then?” and my nod had been enough. 

Now he stands, dripping, on my bedroom floor. 

He is but a child, and I am some perverted old Potions Master with aged hands and a hunger for things such as this:  some forbidden urge that is so persistent in me that I must shop for it as if it were some ordinary commodity in the Alley during foul, unforgiving rains, or risk having it eat me whole. 

Or perhaps it is just him, I recall telling myself I would never do this again:  buy a boy with my ingredients.  But I’ve never wanted one as young as him before. 

I watch him look around my flat; his head tilted up as he eyes the portraits and the small bobbles that line my worktables.  When I am not at Hogwarts I am here where no one knows, doing things that no one can ever know.  I cringe to think what this could mean for my teaching career, Professor Snape buying young boy arse – five billion points from Slytherin. 

There is tenseness in his movements, his hands fidget in front of him and he seems unable to stay still.  I can imagine what he must think of me, what he expects to happen here.  I do not plan on disappointing him.  Finally, he turns and gives me another smile, a drop of rain falling down his nose.  I frown at him and take out my wand, watch as he immediately stiffens and skitters back across the floor.  I spell him dry and he relaxes, but his eyes remain wary. 

“What is your name?”  He seems to consider this question before replying. 

“Harry.” 

“Sit on the bed, Harry.” 

“What’s your – “ 

“That is none of your concern.” 

He accepts this and sits on the edge of the bed, his hands resting on his knees. 

Walking over I stare at his downcast eyes and the pale pink turn of his lips, he looks ridiculously young and somewhat uncertain.  Definitely new.  

His jaw is smooth and trembling in my hand, and when I kiss him his eyes widen and he melts, curling at the affection as his mouth opens; a sweet, warm mouth that tastes like nothing because he probably hasn’t eaten anything all day. 

It makes me wonder what kind of life this child has lead that such a little thing like a kiss can make him this pliant, this willing, where before he had been just a desperate boy plucked from the street. 

He licks his lips when I pull away.  He stares at me for a moment before he drops a hand to his lap, watching me nervously as he moves it up slowly, along his thigh.  A child’s attempt at a seduction.  He cups his crotch and squeezes, pulling at his belt. 

I stand back a little and watch, half-amused, as he strips, undoing his trousers and pulling them down his legs only to realize he’s forgotten his shoes.  He smiles, embarrassed, and bends down to untie them, taking them off and then quickly removing the worn jeans. 

My bed is old, but comfortable, stacked with warm blankets and cool top sheets.  Pillows are mounted against wrought-iron headboard, and Harry crawls up it, his eyes half closed as he sinks into all that comfort.  All he needs is a hand on his thigh and his legs spread.  His skin is cold, and soft. 

I don’t remembering desiring him this much when I saw him on the street; a trembling pale thing tucked in on himself.  But this naïve little hustler lying on my bed is suddenly everything I want.  I’m hardly out of my own clothing before I am reaching for him, slicking my fingers, slicking myself, slipping into him.  His hands grip the headboard, his head gets thrown back into the pillows as he pants and whimpers, from pleasure or pain, I’m not sure.  He’s not very hard, but he’s tight and hot, and Merlin, I can’t last very long when everything’s perfect like this. 

Thrusting in and out of him, I feel almost happy, almost whole.  My body aches to be deeper, to go faster, harder.  But his face – Harry’s face – is twisted and his eyes are skewered shut.  I do not think he’s enjoying this very much.  It doesn’t matter, soon I’m coming, crying out, gripping him hard enough to bruise, and he slumps, still half-hard, his eyes still shut. 

I pull out slowly, watching his face, it’s furrowed, the expression strained.  For a moment I am afraid he’s going to cry but he composes himself and I stand, reach for my purse and extract the money, then I pick up his trousers and shove them into the pocket. 

“Get out.”  I throw the trousers at him.

I find him at the same place at the same time the next day and the day after and the day after and the day after, on and on.  He is always huddled in a worn, orange blanket now – I wonder what customer gave him this charity - on the street by the Apothecary and Antiques shop.  Whenever he sees me coming a distant look of hope crosses his face and my insides clench.  I treat him like rubbish and he is happy to see me. 

Some nights, I give him eight galleons and fuck him as he kneels down on all fours on my cold hardwood floor. 

I see him often, and some nights we fuck and some nights I bring him home only to change my mind about it.  Those nights he’ll sit on my couch and eat crisps, licking the salt from his fingers, and his feet will bounce along the hardwood floors, leaving tiny little smudges of dirt.  He never says no to me and I never see him leave with or part company with anyone else.  But perhaps it is only because we have developed a routine and he simply waits for me, turning down others. 

I do not know which thought disturbs me more:  that he is my personal whore or that I warrant special treatment.

It was the worst winter day of the year when I run into him next, he is curled up small the stoop and there is a bruise on his face.  He shrinks back a little when he sees me coming, but as he recognizes my face a small, regretful smile appears on his. 

“Can’t shag t-today,” he stutters, shivering.  “Not for a couple of weeks.” 

I don’t want to know why.  I don’t want to know why I’m helping him up either, prompting him to my flat, assuring him that everything will alright although maybe not in so many words. 

“I d-don’t want t-to...” 

“Stay with me tonight.”  Just tonight, I think, and then I throw him back in the morning, my little fish. 

He’s a shaking mess in my arms and he winces with every step and accidental brush of my hand on his body.  His teeth chatter, his blanket is ripped, and I smell blood.  The Alley has not been treating him well. 

“What happened?”  I’m not sure I want to know, but something in me feels compelled to ask, a dark nasty part that’s curious and morbid.  I want to know what happened for reasons that aren’t totally known to any part of me. 

Harry just shakes his head, his body a mass of shivering bone and skin.  My arms tighten around him as I help him into my flat and steer him towards my bed.  I don’t know what I plan on doing with him, I can’t take care of him, I can barely take care of myself for Merlin sakes, but I am not about to leave him out in this weather looking the way he does. Not unless I want to find his corpse tomorrow, or see his anonymous obituary in the Daily Prophet with an empty space where a life should be summarized in black print. 

He looks so small in my bed curled up the way he is pale and closed off, a secret little bundle of tragedy.  His hair is messy and clumped, his skin a few shades too pale and yellow to be healthy, and his ribs jut out angrily under his shirt.  I didn’t know what had attracted me to him, what made him stand out above all the other hustlers in the Alley, other than maybe his large, green eyes; pretty and sad.  There was willingness in those eyes, an empty starvation that pulled you in.  I couldn’t stop with him, and with every bruise I stained upon his body he somehow became more and more mine. 

He wasn’t handsome, and he wasn’t delicate.  He hinted at beautiful, but mostly he was just a dying child wrapped in a body that betrayed its sickness. 

The button of his trousers is gone, and his zipper won’t close anymore.  There’s blood staining them and as he shifts on the bed they leave red marks on my sheets.  His breaths are shallow and painful sounding, wet and short.  I don’t know what to do, where to put my hands, where to stand.  All I can do is watch as he suffers, shrinking in on himself and making soft, mewling sounds of pain from deep in his throat and chest.  

I give him a potion; I clean his wounds as best I can.  He protests without consciousness, his arms moving restlessly and his head tossing to the side, I easily avoid all of this and do all I can think to do.  Well, that is a lie.  I know I should floo St. Mungo’s, or at least a nursemaid, but I do neither of these things. 

He’s so young that if I call, they would take him away from me.  And I don’t want anyone to take him away from me yet. 

Putting my hand on his shoulder, frozen cold even through his shirt, I lie down behind him, stretching my body out next to his and wrapping an arm around his waist as I pull him close.  He shudders and squirms but doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t even wake up.  He’s soft and breakable, I know that now.  His small, contained self:  misery in my arms. 

I am arrogant enough to think that maybe my holding him will be enough to take it away, to erase his life and give him hope.  I am a fool; I think I can give him a chance that I cannot give myself.

I wake up to an unusual sensation:  I am not alone.  There is some warm, small lump in bed next to me, a body pressed against mine, and I stiffen for a moment before I remember the stray pet I adopted the night before; the bird with the broken wing. 

Looking back over my shoulder and down, I see that we have turned at some point in the night, so now it is he who is pressed to my back, his mouth open and limbs askew in some boy-sprawl, with on leg peaking out from beneath my covers – toes splayed in a pink row.  For a moment I’m taken dumb by the sight, frozen into staring at his youthful and bruised upturned face, the flutter of black eyelashes against a pale cheek.  He is young enough to be my son. 

And how inappropriate would that be? 

Moving carefully, not wanting to wake him, I disentangle his limbs and the blanket from my body and get out of bed, standing over him for a moment before I take my wand to prepare breakfast.  My mind works as I heat water, fry eggs, pour juice – what now?  Things seem harsher in daylight and now I goggle at my stupidity:  how could I bring him here?  To stay? 

Madness, utter and complete madness, if I were to call St. Mungo’s now they would have to check me into the room across from his, with some insane person who would introduce me to all his imaginary friends. 

When I hear the bed linens rustle behind me, I do not turn around, staring instead at frying bacon and eggs. 

“’lo?” 

Indeed, in the morning, in one sock. 

I turn to regard him with my best ‘your existence is barely significant to me’ gaze.  “Good morning.” 

He’s sitting up in bed, regarding me with his owlish green eyes; the one side of his hair is flattened to his rather lopsided head.  Very unattractive overall, I decide.  “Morning.”  He sniffs the air, looks around.  “Where am I?” 

How quickly we forget.  “My flat,” without flare, “in my bed,” without forgiveness.  Like the fool I have become I point to the plate that has appeared in my hand, “Would you like some breakfast?” 

He smiles and suddenly I feel as if I am in some very deep trouble indeed.  “Sure.” 

He eats his breakfast quietly and slowly, taking small bites and chewing thoroughly before moving onto the other.  He eats like a baby bird, sick and frail and I frown at him briefly before getting up and going to the cabinet.  I extract a crystal bottle with blue liquid inside, a Draught of Appeasement. 

“This will help with any pain,” I say, giving it to him.  “Put a few drops on your eggs.” 

He takes them and does as told, corking the bottle carefully before handing it back.  “Thank you.”  He eats and I continue to watch him. 

“Why did you help me?” he asks when his plate is empty.  “You could have just left me.” 

“Yes, I suppose I could have.  But I am not in the habit of leaving young boys in the street to die when I can do otherwise.” 

His look is understandably skeptical.  “There are a lot of people dying out there, why don’t you do a thing to help them?” 

The answer should be obvious, but then maybe it isn’t.  He is not the first I’ve taken home and never before would such insanity as this even have occurred to me.  I suppose he is different, or perhaps he makes me somehow different. 

“Don’t ask foolish questions, boy,” I snap instead.  “I would think you would be grateful – “ 

“I am grateful,” he quickly says, “just – it’s just unexpected is all, not many would do all this for me.  For anyone.”  He quirks a smile and his eyes squint, regarding me in a way that isn’t altogether focused.  “Thank you.” 

I shift uncomfortably under his scrutiny; “This is by no means a permanent thing.  Do not think that just because I have fed you it means you are staying.” 

“No,” he says demurely, “of course not.” 

The days past and the boy remains with me.  After a while I find I cannot let him go (he has become one of the few permanent fixtures in my life) and he seems happy to stay, which does not surprise me in the least.  I suppose even the arms of an old man with cold eyes is more welcoming then where he came from, where I found him. 

I leave him alone in my flat during the day, puttering around as he reads my books and looks out my window at the street below, his gaze shifting occasionally towards the direction of Knockturn Alley.  We do not talk about it, an unsaid agreement between us, and I think we are both happier that way. 

When I come home in the evenings, tired and weary, often times reeking of potions or even blood, he rushes to meet me at the floo, smile ready and wide.  He flings himself at me, cotton arms wrapping around my neck and cold nose snuffling into my hair. 

What a pretty domestic picture we paint:  a Death Eater and his reckless House Boy. 

“I’ll understand if you wish to leave,” I had told him stiffly one night as we lay in bed, him draped over me – his finger tracing the Mark.  “Not many want anything to do with our sort.” 

“And what sort is that?” 

“You know very well what sort.” 

Harry had smiled tolerantly and continued to look at the Mark, his finger tracing the snake as it writhed out of the gaping skull’s mouth.  “Many would say that my sort isn’t the kind to associate with either.  So I suppose it’s good that we found each other, that way our sorts can be sorted together.” 

“You are an impossible, infuriating boy.”  But my arms had tightened around him. 

“Yes, well, too late now, isn’t it?” 

I grow accustomed to him, to his mess and his smell.  The part of me that wonders if it is an act he has kept up is always present, but I quiet the doubts the best I can, it is easy to do as he fawns over me, worshiping my tired face with his gentle hands.  This boy, my Harry, my rescued pet, has become to me something I never thought he would:  familiar. 

Harry is intolerable sometimes and I begin to suspect that had he been admitted to Hogwarts he would have been a Gryffindor.  I come home one day to find him standing sheepishly next to a giant crater that was once my kitchen floor. 

I do hope the downstairs neighbors were not home at the time. 

“I didn’t mean to, I was trying to make you dinner!” 

I gawk, unable to fathom how the two things could possibly be related. 

“I was reaching for something on the top shelf of the cabinet,” Harry says miserably, “and I knocked over a phial.  Or, um, seven, and – and well … “ 

I look at the crater, and the slightly singed toes of Harry’s socks, and then finally at the burnt pot on the stove.  It looks like it could have been eggs. 

“Sorry?” Harry offers. 

No one’s ever tried to make me dinner before, I open my arms and it’s easy to forgive him.  Some things are very easy to forgive. 

As even more days past we learn slowly about each other, I am uncertain if it is because new trust is being gained or because the urge to confide in another human being gets stronger with constant companionship, but I find myself telling him things I’ve told no other.  About him, about V – the Dark Lord. 

“There was a Prophecy given once, a long time ago, that a boy would be born at the end of July, and that he would be the one powerful enough to defeat the Dark Lord.  There were two such boys born during that time, and of the two one was killed and the other – his parents were tortured into insanity.  The son of that family was never found, the Dark Lord suspects his godfather stole away with him in the night.  He still fears that his most powerful enemy waits for him, biding his time.” 

“No time like the present,” the boy quips.  And I am inclined to agree.  “Of course, the … Dark Lord could have gotten the right bloke after all, we could all be doomed.” 

“How optimistic of you.” 

“Fancy you to be one talkin’ about optimism,” Harry teases, his chin propped up on my naked chest while his hand roams my body below the sheet.  “Isn’t that the case of the pot calling the kettle black?” 

“I am merely observing the statistical probability that the boy that escaped is the boy who is the one that can save us all,” I say calmly.  “Fifty percent that, not bad odds.” 

“Not great ones either.”  His fingers curl over my prick and words tumble around in my mouth seeking order. 

“One must not lose hope.” 

“No, I suppose one mustn’t.”  His infernal grin lasts for a moment before it melts away into something soft and understanding.  “Of course, hope sometimes comes in the strangest forms when you least expect it.” 

The sentimental fool in me flourishes from his words, my insides spreading with warmth, and I am inclined to agree. 

Today I watched Albus Dumbledore die, and with him the last great hope of the Wizarding world.  I have always been afraid of resistance, for the simple reason that all those who resist the Dark Lord have a tendency to wind up quite dead or insane.  But Dumbledore resisted, to his last moment, to his final, wheezing breath as he turned his own blood to ash in his veins simply because the Dark L – because Voldemort had wanted it. 

“You’re distracted,” Harry offers, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the fire, his chin tilted up to me.  “Have been since you came in.  Something happen today?” 

“Something, yes … “ I answer, distracted.  “Nothing for you to concern yourself with.” 

Dumbledore’s eyes had remained open until the very end, wide and blue and defiant, his mouth set in some kind, unaffected line.  And his eyes had looked at me, not Voldemort, as the sight drained out of them.  Me. 

Harry puts his head down on my knee and I look at him, always a little surprised to see him there, unsure how it happened this way.  I put my hand on his head and feel the soft strands of hair fall through my fingertips like silk – soothing me. 

I feel his smile against my leg, his cheek pressing my inner thigh.  I continue to stroke his hair as he moves to his knees, shuffling between my legs and reaching for the fastenings of my trousers.  Small hands push them down and aside, reaching for me and taking my prick in his hands. 

I catch my breath, my eyes on him the entire time, my hand buried in that hair. 

When his mouth closes over me I can’t help but moan, a small wet tongue laps at my cock and I feel as if my entire body is trembling with his gentle, skilled ministrations.  Wetness, heat, exaltation; his every breath feels sweet and torturous against me. 

Harry moans, his hands on my hips, his head bobbing.  I resist the urge to thrust into his mouth, to take him hard and fast and instead I just sit still, my hips perhaps shifting from time to time.  His lips move slickly against me, gliding up and down as I fall in and out of his mouth.  The sight of it as I watch, the flesh getting trapped and released in his mouth, is enough to send me groaning towards orgasm. 

Sweet Merlin, I’m going to Hell.  

But tomorrow, I think, I will stay home.

I do stay home the next day.  And the next and the next and the next.  Harry doesn’t say anything about it but I see him regard me with perplexity and some concern, but he never says anything to my odd behaviour.  Perhaps he’s afraid if he steps out of line I will throw him back on the street. 

Foolish boy, he doesn’t know a bloody thing. 

As I sit here, I know, I am sealing my fate.  My floo has been disconnected from the network, my flat warded from owls, and with every hour that passes I know that my absence is felt with more and more suspicion.  I become very aware of the Mark on my arm, my hand drifting to it every minute or so.  Every time I ignore the Call the pain becomes more insistent; it is now to the point where I am considering simply lopping off the limb at the elbow. 

And still I sit and I wonder if one can resist while doing nothing at all.  I wonder if maybe I’m just tired. 

I am in my armchair, the fire warming me, as I watch Harry toddle around the living room, humming softly to himself and dragging his feet as he gazes at things as if seeing them for the first time.  My boy, I think, my nice little boy. 

We have been together for a short month. 

The doorknob rattles and Harry gazes at it curiously, as if never having seen my door before.  I know who it is on the other side; I know what my absence has cost me. 

“Come here, Harry,” I beckon softly, holding out my arms. 

Harry comes easily, his own arms out to receive my embrace.  His hair smells of vanilla, his skin of berries, and I hold him close with my cheek pressed to the top of his head, feeling his small heart beat rapidly against mine. 

On the other side of the door my name is called, it is Pettigrew and the air is so cold I am surprised I cannot see my breath.  Pettigrew is always with him, with Voldemort. 

Harry looks at me, curiously, and his hand touches my sunken cheek, fingertips pressed underneath a weary eye.  “Is something wrong?” 

The door opens and he is there, right there, I am almost honoured; I merit being destroyed by the master, I see. 

I feel Harry jerk in my arms, his eyes widening as he stares at the two creatures that enter our home, one tall and gray, almost inhuman in appearance; the other a rat of a man with whiskers and a shiny scalp. 

“I am very disappointed in you, I expected better.”  

Resist or serve, resist or die – it is a choice that I have avoided for too long.  The rains of Knockturn Alley, the whores that litter their streets, my small Harry a spot of light amongst all that muck and depravity, Dumbledore’s blood turning to ash by the sheer force of his own will – this, I think, this is something that gives me a reason to try.  I look back on my life and wonder if it was my life at all or Voldemort’s and if he were to die then what would I become? 

What have I become belonging to Harry? 

This, I have become this. 

I look at Harry one last time, for a moment that stretches into peaceful meadows of green grass.  Then I push him away as hard as I bloody can and stand. 

I draw my wand. 

I DRAW MY WAND. 

“No!”  I haven’t a clue who shouts out. 

“Avada Kedarva!”  That, I know, is me. 

There is a flash of green light so brilliant it fills the entire room and causes my elbow to snap back from the sheer force of it as it leaves my wand.  I fall back a step, shielding my eyes and hear a scream of anguish that makes my hair stand on end. 

But when I open them, Voldemort still stands – and Pettigrew stands in front of him, his face frozen in agony and so very, very dead. 

Voldemort releases the neck of Pettigrew’s robes and the foolish little man falls to the floor in a heap. 

With that curse I have expended all my energy, I can barely lift my arm before I find myself staring down the end of Voldemort’s wand. 

“CRUCIO!” 

Agony.  AGONY.  Pain like a thousand icicles splitting apart my skin, melting into my blood and spreading throughout my entire body.  I scream, my scream screams, my throat fills with the blood of it all. 

“No!”  That, I know, is Harry. 

I am on the floor, writhing, twitching with the aftermath of the curse.  Voldemort is there standing over me like a great stone idol and I see him raise his wand again and I know he will waste no more time, this is the end – the end of Severus Snape – 

“No!”  

A body is thrown over mine, a small, skinny body with gangly arms and unruly hair and glasses askew.  The curse is already in the air and that awful light fills the room again, but I do not die. 

I do not die and it is the worst agony I could ever imagine, because it could only mean – it means … 

Through my slippery eyes overflowing with tears I see something white, white and pure.  It is an aura around Harry that encompasses the whole of his curved back and it only glows brighter as the green light of the Unforgivable strikes it hard and fast. 

But it does not crumble.  Instead, as the curse hits the light it breaks off into red rose petals, filling the air with their summer scent. 

The screams that sound next are Voldemort’s; the body that falls is his.  My Harry becomes limp above me. 

Slowly, painfully, I turn him over so he is under me:  his skin pale, his breathing deep. 

“Harry?”  I do not recognize the tremble in my voice; the rose petals fall like drops of blood from the heart of the world but I am lost in an infinity of green. 

Perhaps I was a fool, all those days ago to take him in as I did.  As I watch him some part of me inside becomes irreparable. 

His mouth moves into a small smile.  “You never told me your name.” 

I – I hadn’t?  How couldn’t I?  How, after all this time … 

“Severus.  It’s Severus Snape.” 

“Severus,” he repeats. 

Then he is gone. 

Knockturn Alley in the rain smells like nothing; like emptiness, like despair.  But I no longer venture there, so perhaps it is different now, like everywhere else. 

No one knows of Harry.  I took his body and buried it deep in the ground where it could never be found.  No one knows of Severus Snape either, which is the way it should be. 

All they know is that the Dark Lord is dead and that he was killed by a very powerful wizard; the country waits in worship for him to return one day so that they may shower him with praise, celebrate him as a hero – it is their turn to have a lord.  

So this was the result of my resistance:  a world saved and a Dark Lord vanquished. 

And in Knockturn Alley, on some cobblestone step between the Apothecary and the Antiques shop, a new boy has taken Harry’s place, waiting for a customer.