"While I can understand where it might have sounded like that, I honestly didn't intend my comment in that vein. What I meant was that every Auror in Britain searched for Burke full time for nearly four months. You located him in two days. That was an extraordinary feat. His confounding and unplottable spells were the most intricate I've ever seen." Which was saying a lot, as Severus was a renowned expert in both. "I still don't understand how you did it."
Harry realized that this was the first time Severus had enquired about the details of his rescue. "I, um, didn't find Burke. I found you."
"I don't understand the distinction. I was a prisoner in his keep. I should have been as untraceable as he," Severus said. Although his voice was as carefully controlled as usual, Harry could read how tense Severus had become at this topic. Before, Severus had been lying on his side, relaxed. Now, although, his position hadn't changed, Severus appeared stiff as a corpse.
"You would have been – to anyone else," Harry explained.
"So it was the greater strength of your powers that allowed you to circumvent his spells?"
"Only his security wards. It was actually Hermione who came up with the idea that allowed me to locate you. It wasn't something I would have thought of on my own."
It abruptly occurred to him that Severus mightn't be comfortable hearing about the mental link that existed between them.
"You intrigue me," Severus said, watching him across the pillow. When Harry didn't say anything else, Severus asked, "Is there some reason you aren't telling me how you did it?"
"I, er, don't know if you're going to approve of my methods," Harry finally said.
Clearly, Severus was feeling much better, for instead of hounding him, he suggested in a nearly playful tone that Harry had never thought he'd hear again, "Are you about to tell me that you sacrificed a student to some dark power in exchange for my release? Granted, I haven't been myself of late, but I haven't noticed that any of the monsters have gone missing."
Harry chuckled at the outrageous suggestion. "No, I didn't make a human sacrifice. And you shouldn't sound so hopeful about it."
"Pity," Severus answered in that same long-missed tone. "So what did you do?"
"It, um, had to do with your helping me with Voldemort's nightmare curse. Hermione had read some ancient book about Legilimency and Occlumency which proposed that when wizards use those powers on each other over the long-term, that a . . . subconscious link is formed between their minds. It appears we have one."
"A mental link?" Severus' tone revealed that he was fully as unnerved as Harry had feared he would be.
"It's not conscious," Harry swiftly assured. "Even when I was actively searching for it, I could barely find it. It was like a fine thread of power leading from you to me. I just followed it to its source. I can't even feel it now. Can you?"
Severus closed his eyes. After a long moment of silence, he reopened them and gave a negative shake of his head.
"I know you're not comfortable with any form of mental contact," Harry said, barely able to believe how nervous he felt. It would be just his luck that this link would make Severus shut him out again. "How freaked out are you by it?"
"With this link, would I even know if you were monitoring my thoughts?" Severus asked.
"I . . . honestly don't know. I've never felt like I'm . . . reading what you're thinking. Like, right now, I haven't got a clue how you're feeling about any of this. Have you ever . . . felt like you were unintentionally reading my thoughts?"
Severus gave a negative shake of his head.
"Then maybe it isn't something we have to worry about?" Harry hopefully suggested.
The mentally unstable man he'd been dealing with for the last few months would have blasted him for what he knew to be a pathetically transparent effort to minimize the importance of this disturbing development. But tonight Severus simply watched him in silence for a nerve-wrackingly long period before saying, "As I am the one who suggested and initiated the mental contact, the fault is mine."
"I don't think it's a question of fault," Harry protested.
"Are you telling me that you are . . . comfortable knowing that I might have open access to your mind after what I did to you?" Severus demanded with the first trace of asperity he'd shown since Harry's nightmare had awoken them.
"Why do you have to keep bringing that up?" Harry all but whined.
Severus seemed to take extreme care in choosing his words as he slowly replied, "Because it was an unforgivable transgression that will always be between us. No matter what, it will never go away."
Severus really felt that way. Harry could tell by his tone how deeply it still upset him.
What Severus had done that night had angered him, but a month's distance had helped him get some perspective on the event. When he considered what could have happened had Severus really had evil intent, what Severus had actually done didn't seem quite as terrible. Not that he could excuse it, but . . . he knew how hard he'd been pushing that night and how fragile Severus had been. The situation had been rife for disaster, and he was hardly innocent.
Tired of the whole sorry mess, Harry sighed and said, "Do you really want it to go away?"
"What I want is hardly significant."
"In this case, what you want is the only thing that matters. If you really want it to go away, say you're sorry."
"What? You can't be serious," Severus said.
"I'm totally serious. If you're sorry you did it, then say so. You never have. I know it's been weighing on your mind, but you've never actually come out and said you're sorry you did it," Harry pointed out.
Severus stared at him as if he were as crazy as he often felt. After a tense pause, he said, "No one could forgive that kind of betrayal. How could I possibly apologize for what I did?"
"Just say the words," Harry answered. "But only say them if you mean them."
Severus' expression seemed to indicate that he feared he was being mocked, but he nonetheless soldiered on and haltingly offered, "Harry Potter, I am deeply sorry for the grievous offence I committed against your mind and heart the night I manipulated your memories."
It was more than he'd thought Severus could ever give him. Hearing the sincerity in that troubled tone, and seeing how, even now, Severus looked as though he were anticipating laughter, Harry quickly responded in turn with, "And I'm sorry I pushed you so hard that night. I'll forgive you if you forgive me."
"It can't be that easy," Severus protested.
"Yes, it can. Do you forgive me?"
"There is nothing to forgive. You were the victim."
"I disagree. You were at your wits' end and I pushed you over the edge. You snapped and did something you would never have done if I weren't pressuring you so hard. So, do you forgive me?"
Severus gave a slow nod.
"Fine. I forgive you. Can we get past this now?" Harry begged.
"How can you just let this go? Who could forgive something like that?" Severus questioned. From his attitude, it was obvious that forgiveness was as far outside his experience as someone loving him was.
It wasn't any big surprise to Harry. Everything Severus had ever said indicated that no one had ever given a damn about him.
"We were both out of our heads that night," Harry said. "We both made mistakes. We can spend the next year or decade angsting over it if we want to, but I don't see how that's going to help either of us. We need to heal, Severus. We can't do that if we're living in the past and blaming each other for things neither of us could help doing."
"But -"
"That sadistic bastard doesn't get to win," Harry interrupted before Severus could take on any more guilt. "You're not losing everything because of him. He told me himself that he messed with your head. For all we know, he could have brainwashed you to do something like that."
"As much as I'd like to place the blame on Burke, the idea was all mine," Severus said. "I . . . wasn't thinking clearly that night."
"Neither was I. But we're both doing better now, aren't we?" Harry asked, working hard to change the topic and mood.
"I . . . never thought I could feel anything like hope again," Severus offered in an uncertain voice. "It felt like a dementor had sucked all the life out of me."
Thinking that this was a real breakthrough, Harry softly commented, "You, um, never talk about what you went through. It might help to talk about it."
The sudden tension in the bed was almost a palpable entity.
He could feel Severus watching him, searching his features.
After a long pause, Severus asked, "What is there to say? You . . . saw what was done to me."
"You must have been very frightened," Harry said in that same quiet tone. He didn't know if Severus would respond to the opening. For that matter, he didn't know if Severus could respond.
"Even for a former Death Eater, it was . . . an illuminating experience."
Harry couldn't imagine how much it took for Severus to voice those words in the normal tone he'd just used. The tension in those stark features told him how tightly Severus was controlling himself.
"Illuminating isn't the word I'd use," Harry said. "I think if it had been me there, I would have been out of my mind with terror. I know I felt that way just looking for you, imagining what you must be going through. But . . . I never imagined anything as horrible as what he actually did."
"Burke was . . . quite inventive," Severus said in a low tone. "Even Voldemort could have learned a thing or two from him."
Reading everything Severus wasn't saying in those haunted features; Harry reached out to lay his hand on Severus' tense forearm. "I know you probably don't feel that way, but you're the bravest man I've ever met."
Severus' face scrunched in a distasteful expression. "Bravery had nothing to do with it. I assure you. Do not delude yourself. I . . . begged most cravenly."
Harry didn't even have to work to read how much that upset Severus. Carefully choosing his words, he answered, "What man wouldn't beg when tortured like that? That doesn't make you a coward; it makes you human. What I meant by brave was that you had the resiliency to hang on. Poppy told me what a miracle it was that there was any life left in you at all. The blood loss alone was staggering, not to mention the shock. You shouldn't have survived it, but somehow you did. And you've had the courage to put your life back together."
"I would hardly call my life 'together'. You are sleeping here to keep me from cracking up. I . . . will never regain what Burke stole from me."
The absolute despair in those words chilled his soul. This wasn't the first time Severus had said something like that, Harry realized, remembering a few other discussions where Severus had voiced a similar sentiment. Swallowing hard, Harry asked in the gentlest tone he could manage with his throat tied in this painful knot, "What is it you think he stole from you?"
"Aside from my dignity and self-respect?" Severus questioned. After a pause, he continued with, "I might have been able to manage, even without those. But he destroyed something that . . . I couldn't stand to lose."
"Torture shakes everyone's dignity and self-respect. I've had a little experience with it myself, Severus," Harry offered, remembering the night Voldemort had killed Cedric and tortured him with Cruciatus. He knew that, though terrible, those events hardly compared to the level of what had been done to Severus, but he remembered feeling exactly the same way afterward. "But they come back in time."
"The other won't. That's . . . ruined."
"What 'other'?" Harry questioned.
Severus' face abruptly became guarded, as if he'd thought better of his candour. "It's . . . not important. I shouldn't have run on as I did."
"Severus, please talk to me. I'm trying to understand what you're going through. I can't do that if you won't tell me what's bothering you. What could be more important than your dignity and self-respect?"
He could almost see Severus' honesty vying with his need for self-protection. After an extended pause, Severus vented a weary-sounding sigh and said, "I suppose speaking about it doesn't make any difference at this point. Not to sound melodramatic, but the day Burke . . . abducted me, I was probably the happiest I've ever been. You'd given me a gift that morning that I'd never imagined within my reach and . . . for the first time in memory, I was . . . optimistic about my future."
A gift? It took Harry nearly a full minute to figure out what Severus was referring to.
"You're talking about our plan for me to move down to the dungeon?" Harry asked, that knot in his throat extending down to his stomach. That was more important to Severus than the loss of his self-worth?
Severus gave a tight nod.
Stunned, Harry tried to find the right response, but he was so shocked by Severus' words that he could barely think. He'd always felt like he needed Severus more than Severus needed him. He knew Severus loved him, but it had never occurred to him that he could matter this much. Although it was probably the worst time for this kind of disclosure, the discovery turned his world upside down. His emotions were so overwhelmed by what Severus had just admitted that he could barely hold onto a coherent thought, let alone speak. Finally, he managed, "How is any of that 'ruined'? I'm here in the dungeon with you now. I . . . I've told you I still love you. I wasn't lying."
"I recognize that you still have . . . feelings for me. But I'm not the man I was before January. I'll never be that man again. What we had -"
