Severus' mind still felt as if he were at war with himself as he rested his cheek on Harry's shoulder and accepted the comfort on offer. John Penbroke had spent the last month trying to get him to accept that he was worthy of Harry's affections, but even now, he felt utterly unclean. He couldn't help but feel that by touching him, Harry tainted himself. Perhaps it was simply that today's session was still too close. Penbroke had forced him to examine actions that he normally spent his days struggling to forget. The man who'd done those things had no right to touch Harry Potter.
"I wish there were something I could do to make this easier for you," Harry whispered as his hand rubbed over his back in reassuring circles. That luscious mouth settled in the oily hair at the crown of his head to murmur, "Just know how proud I am of you."
It was too much. Severus pulled out of the embrace, his entire body trembling.
"What's wrong?" Harry questioned.
"You wouldn't be," Severus managed to stammer out.
"What?" Harry sounded completely bewildered.
"Proud. If you knew what I was – the things I've done – you wouldn't be proud. You wouldn't be here," Severus forced his deepest fear out. He couldn't go on pretending like this. Every single day he spent dredging up his past with Penbroke showed him how completely inappropriate it was for him to be with this bright and beautiful young man. Harry was the embodiment of all that was good and noble. While he . . . .
Harry seemed to study him for a long moment before cautiously answering, "That isn't the first time you've said something like that."
"No, it isn't. It is, however, the truth."
"What is it you think I don't know?" Harry questioned. "I know you were a Death Eater. I know what that means. I also know you chose to turn your back on that and did whatever you had to in order to make amends for your mistakes."
"You can't make amends for some actions," Severus voiced what had to be the one abiding truth he'd ever learned.
"Says who?" Harry demanded, visibly upset. "You've been in hell your entire life. Whatever you did; whatever you think you did; you've more than paid for it."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Severus insisted.
"So, tell me . . . or show me. You keep insisting that I wouldn't be with you if I knew, but you never give me the chance to prove you wrong. Give me that chance," Harry pleaded, unknowingly echoing Penbroke's words from earlier tonight.
"You . . . don't know what you're asking," Severus said, for once not balking at the prospect. Maybe it was a month's worth of wrestling with these demons, while trying to figure out how Harry fit into the kind of life he'd led, that gave him the fortitude to actually consider the idea. So far, the one thing he'd realized was that Harry didn't fit in with any of that darker stuff. Clearly, Harry didn't belong with him, but . . . he needed Harry, more than he'd ever needed anything.
"I'm asking you to give me the chance to prove that I love you," Harry said. "I can't tell you that whatever you went through won't matter to me. It's hurt you so bad that you can't even share it with me, so, it's bound to be something awful. But, for both our sakes, you need to know that I'm still going to be here, despite it."
Harry was glowing with Gryffindor certainty; Severus could almost hate him for that faith.
Garnering his courage, Severus answered, "It isn't 'something awful'. It's forty some odd years of awful."
"Okay, it's forty years of it. Tell me."
"And if you find that this darkness is too much to accept?"
The expression in Harry's eyes showed that he was just as frightened of that possibility as Severus was himself. But Harry rallied his courage, as he had at every other challenge in his life and said, "Then at least we'll know. That's worth something, isn't it?"
"It's not worth losing you over," Severus retorted.
"I don't think that's going to happen," Harry said.
"Then you haven't a clue as to what we're discussing, because, I assure you, there is every possibility that you will not be able to look at me again once you know certain facts. Are you willing to take that chance?"
He heard the shaky breath Harry drew before answering, "Are you willing to let me? I'm telling you that there's nothing you could have done in your past that will change the way I feel about you. I know that for a fact. I think we've come to the point where you need to know it for a fact, too."
"And if you're wrong?" Severus challenged. He was shaking all over. Everything he knew about this man was telling him that Harry wasn't simply going to let the matter drop again. Either Severus was going to have to refuse him, which could be as damaging to their relationship as indulging him, or he was going to have to concede and let Harry see the sort of man he'd been bedding these last eight months.
"Then we'll just have to work it out," Harry said.
"You could be so wrong that you will be unable to be in the same room with me afterwards," Severus warned.
"No, I couldn't. I know you don't believe this, but I know the man I love. I know what you will and won't do. I'm betting you weren't that different when young."
"You'll lose that bet, Harry."
"No, I won't. Tell me," Harry urged.
There would be no backing out this time, Severus recognized. Staring at that waiting face, he tried to find the words that would incorporate a lifetime of mistakes, words that would let Harry see who and what he'd been. Only, the telling of it would take years, and he'd already talked himself raw with Penbroke.
His gut turned to ice as he considered the only alternative, the means that would let Harry know it all in a reasonable period of time.
His mouth running dry, Severus hesitantly suggested, "We both know this isn't something that can be told."
"I'm not asking that of you," Harry quickly protested.
"I know," Severus said, somehow keeping his voice steady as he continued, "I'm offering it. As you pointed out, at least we'll know, then."
"I already know. This is so you can be sure, too."
Harry sounded so certain.
Forcing himself to stay the course and hold Harry's gaze, Severus ordered, "Go ahead.".
"Are you sure?"
"Just do it." Severus hadn't meant to snap the words out like that.
His asperity didn't seem to upset Harry. Harry reached out to touch his cheek again, the gesture gentle and cherishing.
Severus felt as if he were falling into Harry's eyes. Those green pools were as bottomless as the Black Lake outside. Down and down he fell, closer and closer to Harry's soul, or, in this case, Harry's mind.
Visibly bracing himself, Harry withdrew his hand and leaned back against the couch. As had happened the first time Harry entered his mind in October, Harry did so without voicing the spell any other wizard would have needed to initiate contact. His magic was so powerful, so instantaneous, that Harry was there inside Severus' mind with a mere thought.
Severus gasped as Harry entered his mind. In its own way, the act was as shattering as when he'd enter his body. Harry's power was incredible, but the touch of his mind was as gentle as his hands were in bed.
Harry took a moment in which he seemed to be absorbing Severus' emotional and mental state.
Severus did his best to keep from panicking, but . . . this was quite possibly the most frightening thing he'd ever endured. To be so open, so known . . . there would be no place to hide when Harry was done and no possibility of pretence.
Severus was shocked to feel a similar nervousness seeping out of the mind visiting his own. His surprise must have been palpable, for Harry chuckled and asked, "What? You're the only one allowed to be nervous here?" When the chuckle faded, Harry said, "We're going to be all right. Just show me whatever you need to."
Momentarily at a loss as to where to start, Severus realized that it would have to be at the beginning. Harry had already inadvertently witnessed some of this back in his fifth year when Severus had attempted to teach him to defend against mental attacks and discovered that the Potter brat had a natural ability for Legilimency that was as frightening as his other precocious talents.
Trying to distance himself from what he was remembering, Severus let Harry see the loveless home he'd grown up in. His father's bullying and sadism, his mother's pathetic surrender to that brutality, his own childish attempts to stand up against the abuse, he let Harry see it all.
Harry's response was exactly what he anticipated of his gentle-hearted lover. Harry ached for him. But this wasn't the part he'd had any worries about. Potter had come from a similar, abusive background. He'd known he'd have Harry's sympathies here.
Bracing himself as best he could, Severus moved on to his first ride on the Hogwarts Express. He didn't try to edit anything, since the purpose of this exercise was honesty. He let Harry see how his own vicious tongue had alienated him from James Potter and his goons before the Sorting Hat had ever touched any of their heads. His schooldays had been a downward spiral from there on in.
Though it took every bit of courage he had, Severus held nothing back. He let Harry see how Lucius had seduced him his second week at school.
Although Harry had been forewarned by Burke's words, Severus could tell how upsetting this part was to him. Knowing something on a mental level was quite different from seeing it enacted before your eyes, and there wasn't anything noble or wholesome about the whole sorry mess. He'd used the word 'catamite' when describing these incidents to Hermione. The word was well chosen, but he could just as easily have said 'whore' for what these incidents made him out to be.
Something in Harry seemed to rebel when Severus reached the part where Lucius had asked his three friends to join their 'study group' in second year.
"Do you want to stop?" Severus rasped out. His voice was grating in his own ears as it rocked the history he was projecting on a mental level.
Harry drew a shuddery breath. "If they weren't already dead, I'd bury them now."
"I was a willing participant," Severus reminded him.
"You were twelve," Harry spat the word out like the obscenity it was. Severus felt Harry make a conscious effort to get a hold on his anger before saying, "Go on."
"It doesn't get any better," Severus warned.
To his unending shock, Harry protested, "Yes, it does. You end up with me. Go on."
Severus had been certain that this noble Gryffindor wouldn't be able to tolerate the depravity he'd shown him, but he could feel from Harry's mind that any anger he had wasn't directed at him. He knew that sympathy wouldn't last, but he was grateful for it.
The years after Lucius left Hogwarts were a parade of similar sexual indiscretions with older Slytherins, but Harry only seemed to react to the pain the incidents had caused him, rather than the horrible crudity of those last years at school.
Severus' heart was pounding against his chest, as if trying to escape, when he reached the summer after he'd left Hogwarts and that momentous night he'd allowed Lucius to talk him into joining Voldemort's group. He let Harry see it all: how tickled his vanity had been that he, a half-blood, had been deemed worthy to join Voldemort's inner circle; how greedy he'd been for the amazing Potions lab Voldemort had set him up in; his conscience's tribulations over the questionable, and totally inimical potions he'd created to pay Voldemort back for that lab; the way he used to pretend not to hear his fellow Death Eaters' boasts about the atrocities they'd committed upon defenceless Muggles. He let Harry see how his greed and avarice had blinded him, how he'd willingly consorted with blood-drunk beasts, how he'd allowed his potions to be used for evil for years while he hid his head in the proverbial sand of his fancy lab.
That whole filthy business with Burke played out in his mind's eye. Once again, he edited nothing. He let Harry see his pathetic attraction to Burke's power. Those were perhaps the days he was most ashamed of, when his own powers hadn't fully matured yet, and he'd allowed his body to be put to humiliating uses simply to touch the kind of magic he'd dreamed of all his life. Burke hadn't exaggerated when he'd told Harry that the stronger wizards in Voldemort's following used to pass him around like a pack of Muggle cigarettes.
Those . . . perversions were fully as disturbing to Harry as he'd feared they'd be. As he'd warned his lover, no decent man could witness such depravity and remain unaffected. He could feel how upset Harry was, and how hard Harry was attempting to hide his reaction, but there could be no lies on this level.
But even that sordid period came to its inevitable end. His betrayal of Burke's plan had earned him Voldemort's highest regard.
It was at this point in his life that the most radical of changes took place. There was nothing like becoming a monster's best friend to open one's eyes to the true nature of the beast. Once again, Severus held nothing back. He let Harry see how his closer contact with Voldemort had slowly brought him to the conclusion that the man they were following was utterly insane. And, even then, he'd tried to ignore that fact, tried to carry on as if nothing were wrong. He might have continued on like that for another five or ten years if Voldemort hadn't insisted that his most loyal follower leave his lab to accompany his fellow Death Eaters on an assignment.
The first night he'd gone out with Lucius and three other Death Eaters, they'd entered the home of a Squib writer on the Prophet who'd been very outspoken against the Ministry's ineffectual response to Voldemort's bid for power. The Squib had had a Muggle wife and three children. Lucius and his friends had slaughtered them in their beds as if they were killing bugs.
