Hope Has a Place
Part Seventeen
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As was expected, Molly Weasley and Hermione Granger shrieked their pleasure the next morning when Severus and Harry's engagement was discovered. Breakfast was taken up with long discussions about flowers, seating arrangements, auspicious dates for weddings and what robes they would be wearing. Fred and George grinned like madmen, no doubt thinking up some prank in order to "congratulate" Severus and Harry on their upcoming nuptials.

Ron looked paler than the porridge steaming on the table, maybe he was wondering if he should be following suit and popping the question to the Granger girl. Harry hadn't stopped smiling as he proudly showed them all his ring, then took Severus' hand and showed his as well. Severus never really saw the need for that, as both rings were identical, but he indulged Harry anyway. Harry had little indulgence in his life so far.

His heart was heavy with the secret he'd yet to tell Harry and he tried to appear as though nothing was wrong.

Severus listened to the chatter with half an ear, watching Harry's reactions. Harry smiled an nodded in all the right places, but Severus guessed that neither of them were keen on the big wedding the Weasleys seemed insistent on. Arthur caught his eye, sipping his coffee carefully.

"Might I have a word with you, Severus?" asked Arthur, rising from the table and heading towards the parlour, glancing back to see if Severus was following him. Severus took one last look at Harry, who was not able to get a word in between the two women. Harry grinned at him and waved him away, letting him know silently that he would be okay on his own for five minutes. Severus knew his discussion with Arthur would probably take longer than that.

The parlour was the only room of the Burrow that looked as though it had never seen much use. There was a large brown leather sofa and two matching armchairs, the leather shining as though it had just been recently polished or had never been used at all. There were no soot stains on the large fireplace dominating one end of the room, as though it too had not been used much.

"Severus, forgive me if I'm prying, but you don't seem happy about this engagement. Is something bothering you?"

Was it that obvious something was? Severus didn't really want to tell Harry this, but was a marriage started with secrets ever going to work? A couple of times he'd tried to tell Harry, but his nerve always failed him.

"I'm not worried about getting married to Harry, I love him," said Severus stiffly.

"I know you do, Severus. I don't doubt that for a minute, but something about this is troubling you."

"Yes," agreed Severus, in need of a confidante and he couldn't imagine telling Molly this. "But not marriage. Harry. There's something I haven't told him. I don't really want to tell him, but I feel I ought to before we get married. I'm just afraid that he will change his mind about being with me after he knows what I've done."

"Severus, what is it? What haven't you told him?"

"That I'm the reason Harry exists."

And then Severus unburdened himself to Arthur, to the secret he'd carried within himself for over eighteen years.

"Merlin's beard!" said Arthur when he'd finished his tale. "And Albus made you do that? You've got to tell Harry, Severus, you have to. It'll only be worse if he somehow finds out later.. It will be best coming from you, you know it will."

"What if Harry hates me once I tell him? I've never been so happy as I am with him, Arthur. It terrifes me, I don't deserve such bliss. It's going to be taken away from me, I can feel it."

"Now, you're just being melodramatic," sighed Arthur. "Tell, Harry, please. It'll only get worse the longer you leave it."

***

Severus tried to tell Harry on many an occasion on the months leading up to their wedding. But something would always happen to prevent it, there would be an interruption of some sort or they would end up kissing, not talking. He was only too happy to let it slide and slide until suddenly it was a week before the wedding and Severus still hadn't told Harry what had happened so long ago.

Severus returned from work, he was now heading up the Minsitry's potions research division, to their shared house in Hogsmeade, deciding that tonight he was going to tell Harry everything and if Harry called off the wedding, well that was just a risk he was going to have to take.

The house was quiet, much too quiet. "Harry?" he called, but received no answer. Severus searched every room in the house, but Harry was nowhere to be found. He even checked the attic, although he was hard pressed to wonder what Harry might be doing up there, dusty and smelly place that it was.

It was as he was coming downstairs again that he noticed the crumpled up issue of the Daily Prophet on the small table at the foot of the stairs. He smoothed it out, the moving black and white picture on the front causing his heart to contract in his chest.

He was too late. His story was plastered all over the newspaper and now Harry had left him because of it.

Severus sank to his knees in despair, falling into a pit so black and deep, he could find no way out of it.

***

Harry gripped his broom handle so hard his knuckles clenched painfully. He couldn't get that vile picture out of his mind, no matter how hard or high he flew. It was rolling round in his head like his own private horror movie and he cursed the fact that he'd ever seen it. The Prophet was one of the new and improved editions, not only did the pictures move, there was sound too, like a video snapshot, the sounds almost as bad as the picture had been.

He hadn't been able to stay in the house a moment longer. He felt tainted just having looked at it. His breath caught, tears fell from his eyes, whisked away by the wind and he just wished the picture didn't exist. He wondered who had taken it, who had sent it to the Prophet and why on earth they had published it in the first place. Even now, months since his demise, Voldemort could still reach out and hurt him and Severus.

The picture was awful.

It was vile.

It was grotesque.

And it was even now in the hands of wizards and witches everywhere.

They would all see.

They would all know.

For Severus Snape, such a private, introspective man, it had to be one of his worst nightmares.

"Severus!" Harry screamed, his voice borne away by the wind as he turned his broom back round and headed for home.

***

Harry found Severus sitting by the bottom of the stairs, the newspaper crumpled in his hand. Oh, dear God, he'd seen it, seen the picture. Harry had meant to throw it out before he left. He didn't want Severus to see that, didn't want Severus to be reminded of what Voldemort had done to him. Harry guessed Severus must be feeling about the same as Harry would if he woke up one day to find an image of Lupin raping him on the front page of the Prophet.

Severus looked at him, then blinked, then blinked again. "Harry? What are you doing here?"

"I live here, remember?"

"I thought - I thought you left. You weren't here when I got home." There was no accusation in his voice, only deep pain. "I thought you left."

"I'm sorry I wasn't here, but I went flying to clear my head after seeing - seeing that filth," said Harry, pointing to the newspaper in Severus' fist. "Oh, Severus, you should have told me what he did to you."

"How could I tell you this?" Severus waved the paper at him. "What I'd allowed him to do to me on Dumbledore's orders? Or what I had to do when I got back? What must you think of me?"

"He raped you," Harry said softly, kneeling down next to his bethrothed and caressing his cheek. It sometimes amazed him how much he and Severus had in common, the bad as well as the good. He knew the same pain of betrayal and fear that Severus did.

"There was no penetration, it wasn't rape," insisted Severus. "He just used my mouth to get off. I didn't say no."

"We both know that's a lie, Severus, but if it makes you feel any better about it, go ahead and think that. I've seen the picture, I've seen your tears as you tried to struggle away from him. He hurt you. You didn't want it, that makes it rape in my book. It was still a violation. Why did Dumbledore make you do that?" Harry felt his power flare angrily as he thought of all the betrayals Severus had suffered at the man's hands. He would kill him if he wasn't already dead for what he'd done, allowed to be done to Severus.

"You'll never forgive me for what I did, Harry. We may as well call off the wedding now. It's all my fault."

"You're not getting out of it that easily, Severus. Tell me, please. Nothing you say will change how I feel about you."

"How do you think they got hold of Voldemort's DNA? Who brewed the fertility potion so that Lily could get pregnant with you? I had to let Voldemort come in my mouth and collect his semen when he wasn't looking. I was the reason the Order was able to create you. If I hadn't done what I did, you wouldn't have gone through all that pain." Severus sobbed as the last words left his mouth.

Harry hugged him hard and rocked the weeping man against his body. It was a strange reversal of all the times Severus had comforted him after nightmares of Lupin and Voldemort and Harry was only too happy to return the favour.

"Severus? Is that what you wanted to tell me? What you were worried about telling me?"

His only answer was a slight nod. Severus thought Harry would leave him over this news? It wasn't exactly news to Harry, he'd suspected something like this all along, but didn't know for sure until now. A little while later, the sobbing stopped and Severus looked at him in surprise.

"Harry? You're still here?"

"I'm not going anywhere, Severus. You'd better get used to that."

"But after what I did..."

"Severus, do you really think I'd hold it against you that you helped to bring me into the world? I'm here, I'm with you and we get married next week, if you hadn't done what you did, neither of us would be where we are now, would we?"

"I suppose not," Severus agreed and Harry knew that disaster had been averted. For now at least. It wouldn't be easy, he knew that. It would be a long hard road for both of them, but Harry knew that together they could face anything. Harry still had nightmares and although Severus didn't mention them, Harry guessed he suffered from them too. How could he not after what he'd been through with Voldemort and Dumbledore?

Harry leant up to kiss him briefly, trying to lighten the mood a little. Severus was as stiff and unyielding as a plank of wood in his arms. "Oh, just thought I'd warn you. Fred and George have declared themselves in charge of your stag party."

"Not those two pranksters!"

"Afraid so, but I did warn them to go easy on you or they'd have me to answer to."

"And what about yours?"

"Hermione is organising mine, she's insisting that because I'm the younger partner, I'm the bride and have to have a hen party. Mine will be full of women, although they might hire a male stripper," he said teasingly.

"Thinking of straying already, Mr. Potter?" Severus had a predatory gleam in his eye. "I've warned you before, I do not share what is mine. And you are most definitely mine."

As their lips met in a heated kiss, Harry didn't doubt it for a moment.

Part Eighteen