The Pilgrim Soul

The fires burn all night. When Harry looks around, all he can see is the flickering tongues of unseen smoke signals, useless in the dark. When he closes his eyes the fires remain. There are faces there, too, all those who have been lost. They call to him, beseeching, desperate, but when he tries to reply he finds himself roughly shaken from sleep. Snape is there.

He tries to keep track of the days at first. They come for him late at night when he should have expected it, find him weak and helpless. He is easily overpowered. Strange, almost, how they seem to hate him more for his pitiful attempt at resistance, how he can almost taste the ugly tension knotted into their gloved fists even as he goes quietly. He hopes that the first days will be the worst – even foolishly chances to imagine that they might let him go once they've sated themselves with violence – and the memories of those first, bright-edged interludes of pain still spring swiftly to mind when he thinks about his captors. First, they break his wand. There are no words to express the unbearable wrongness of a wizard without his wand. Every time he breathes he feels the incipient stirrings of magic within him, and he cannot set it free. The torture and beatings are almost a relief after that; at least if he is in constant pain, it is more difficult to dwell upon the magic that chokes and swarms within him. Finally, they bring him Here.

Here is a collection of small buildings scattered around a grey field. They call it Here because there is no other name for the place, but the bleakness and monotony of the name is fitting. There are no visible walls securing the perimeter, no barbed-wire constructs to fence them in, but nobody has attempted to escape since Ginny. It is an unspoken rule that nobody discusses what happened to Ginny (that night, the darkness and the rush of hope and then the ozone of spellfire and that terrible scream). They are put to work. It is a small mercy that their captors are apparently unimaginative in all areas excepting that of torture, and operating the large, old-fashioned printing presses is at least productive. They print propaganda that denounces them, reducing them to grotesque caricatures as it glorifies their captors. Harry smiles the first time he sees his name. His captors quickly force him to regret it.

At night there is freezing cold and rough, woolen blankets. There is a little comfort to be had from others; they are too tired and despairing for physical intimacy, but if they are careful, they can talk a little. It is on the first night that Harry sees a face that he recognises; Neville's. Neville is thinner, older, broken. He is welcoming at first but when Harry begins to ask the prerequisite questions – when, how long, why – he smiles a little and turns away. He does not speak again. Later, when some of the others have ascertained that yes, he really is Harry Potter, they tell him in almost awed tones that Neville never speaks. Harry blinks a little at this, but does not comment upon it. He is beginning to understand. He begins to lose track of time after this (although he does not realise it for several months), but one night he turns around and looks into the eyes of a man that he left for dead. Severus Snape stares back.

The sight of the man stirs emotions that Harry had believed lost, his lips instinctively moving to shape the words of a hex before he remembers the truth, both that of his lost magic and of the spy's true role in the war. He exhales, slowly, willing the hot well of magic inside him to settle down as he evaluates the situation. Grizzled and battered though Snape's features are, they twist into an all too-familiar smirk.

“You would hex me, Potter? Wandless, and in a magically-dampened environment where even you couldn't Transfigure a needle from a straw? I always knew you were over-possessed of that ridiculous Gryffindor determination, but this is impressive even for you.”

Despite himself, Harry almost smiles. It really has been too long.

“You're not dead then, I see.” he murmurs.

Something crosses Snape's face. It could almost be amusement.

“Apparently not.” he replies.

They sleep.

Time passes. Harry learns to adapt, not to question, to fall into a routine. There are no dates printed on the propaganda sheets that they print, but after a while they begin to repeat themselves. Snape becomes a point of constancy, a reassurance, almost. They talk a little and then they sleep until it becomes part of the daily routine, expected. Make no mistake, they are not friends. There is too much history between them for that, too much past dislike and mistrust, but neither are they enemies. Harry takes comfort in the fact that despite it all, Snape is unchanged. He knows that Snape does the same. When winter comes, the cold becomes unbearable. He lies awake despite the devastating tiredness that trembles on the brink of swallowing him, freezing, every inch of him shaking as his breath comes in strained puffs of white. Snape sighs crossly into his ear and wraps Harry in his arms, holding him tightly in a manner that could almost be described as tender. From that night onwards, Harry is never dangerously cold again, and Snape becomes Severus.

Night has fallen, and around them come the gentle sounds of sleep from innumerable others. Harry is clasped tightly in what he has begun to think of as their usual position, but somehow in the quest for warmth he has turned around and they lie face-to-face. Up close, Severus is not as old as his posture pretends. Harry traces the line of one thin cheek, half-smiles at the look of surprise that his touch elicits.

“I have a plan.” he whispers. Severus blinks, one long, slow blink and smiles.

“I don't think we'll be escaping any time soon.” he quietly replies, softening the blow as he presses his lips into Harry's hair. What happened to Ginny lies heavy and unspoken between them.

“We have to try!” says Harry. He hides his face in Severus' neck, angry, afraid.

Severus sighs, making Harry's unkempt hair flutter with his breath as Harry blinks against the warm crease of his neck, long eyelashes brushing against skin. Their hands meet and knot together tightly.

“We have to try.” he softly repeats, moving his face to look into the dark hollows of the other man's eyes.

Severus brings their joined hands up between their bodies to rest a long, warm finger over Harry's now-quiescent lips. He looks at Harry with something approaching wonder in his steady gaze. Despite it all, for a moment there is only them.

“How many loved your moments of glad grace,” he murmurs, “and loved your beauty with love false or true,”

Harry says nothing. Severus moves a hand against his cheek.

“But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, and loved the sorrows of your changing face.”

They are still. Sleep comes quickly.

The plan is simple. The freezing communal showers are part of the ritual of the day, and if Harry had any modesty once, it has long since vanished. Naked, crowded like cattle under the icy jets, the captives are at their weakest. The captors, secure in this knowledge often send only one guard to herd them in and out of the showers. This is when Harry will strike. One guard is easily overpowered, and though he is weak from a poor diet, the heavy printing presses have further improved his already subtly muscular frame. One thing he is certain of; the others must not be informed. If he is to fail, they must not be punished. No more will suffer for his sake. The night before he acts, he and Severus hold each other tightly, their two bodies fitting together easily, naturally, like two halves of a long-forgotten locket. They do not need to say anything to know that they are understood.

Neville approaches Harry as they queue up to enter the shower, surreptitiously places a hand on his arm. For a moment, Harry thinks of Neville's desperate attempt to stop him going after the Philosopher's Stone when they were children, but Neville just gives him a steady look and turns away. Once in the showers, he avoids eye-contact with Severus, mindful that he must not draw attention to himself – not that it's difficult to behave normally when confronted with freezing water. He washes, carefully maneuvering his way to the back of the room so that he will be the last to leave, and as the other captives begin to file out of the room, he joins the line. He watches his feet, wonders what Severus is thinking. Finally, he is standing by the door, alone with the guard. He turns.

The fight is swift and violent. He goes for the solar plexus first, careful to wind the other man before he has a chance to cry for help. A knee to the groin, and the guard doubles over in pain. Harry takes advantage of the man's incapacitation to steal his wand. Pointing the wand at the guard, he looks his foe in the face for the first time. It's Percy Weasley.

All of the air rushes out of him in one painful breath. He knew, of course, that Percy had sided with the Ministry despite their increasingly oppressive policies after the War, but he'd never imagined that Percy, that solemn bespectacled boy that he used to respect had become one of his captors, his tormentors.

“Potter...” hisses Percy, a look of pure hatred etched into the harsh lines of his face. “You'll pay for this.”

Harry looks him in the eye. He thinks of Severus, the heat of his skin, of freedom.

“Avada Kedavra” he whispers, and closes his eyes against the flash of light. When it is over, he runs. Severus is waiting outside.

They make it to the perimeter of the camp before Percy's body is found. Hiding in the bushes, they watch as the emergency signals are lit and Ministry reinforcements are Floo-called. Harry wakes from his dream of fires and looks into Severus' eyes, sees the dimly-reflected firelight dancing in their depths. He is so very tired. Clenched in his fist, the Ministry-issue wand hums quietly with his long-forgotten magic. There are two spells left in it, maybe three. Enough for their purposes.

The voices of the search teams grow closer. Harry fumbles with the wand, places it in Severus' hand.

“Now, Severus.” he murmurs. “Quickly.”

Severus kisses him quickly. It's too sudden and not enough, but there has never been time enough for this, for them.

“Avada...” His voice cracks.

Harry kisses him again. He's ready. He closes his eyes.

“Avada Kedavra.”

The darkness is beautiful as it envelops him. Severus is coming, he is not far behind, and together they blaze like a million constellations, together they burn like a thousand suns, together they are infinite.

And kneeling down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled,

And paced upon the mountain overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

When You Are Old – William Butler Yeats