To Fly
Severus Prince Snape, legendarily infamous Potions Professor, sat in his dungeon office, marking. He was a private man, and to him, spending the evening marking was far more pleasant than joining the rest of the staff in their common room, three floors up. He’d have to listen to mindless pratter then, and drink Hooch’s bad tea, instead of the Firewhiskey he kept in his lowest desk drawer.
In fact, he had a large tumbler of the stuff sitting on his desk before him, and he had been sipping at it steadily as the night got longer and the essays got worse. Flipping Ron Weasley’s essay away - an essay that now resembled something a bleeding rodent had run across, he’d marked so much of it up with red ink - he turned to the next essay.
Harry Potter’s.
Of course.
Snape sighed, reaching for his glass to take a larger swig than was perhaps wise. If he had learned anything from the boy’s five years here, it was that he was going to need it.
‘The Volo par Terra Firma potion allows someone to experience the feelings of flying without ever leaving the ground,’ Harry’s essay read. ‘It can be achieved by combining...’
“Volo par Terra Firma.” Snape muttered. Yes. The drug most closely related to most muggle ones. He used to love that stuff. He used to love to fly, any way he could. He used to brew it, in his spare time, since it was quite legal, without major side effects, and it allowed him to search the skies he loved.
And did he ever remember that potion.
“I hate your fucking guts,” James Potter laughed, lying on the floor of the astronomy tower. “I hate your fucking guts Snivellus, but damn if this isn’t good shit!”
“You like flying?” James mused, from his perch on the edge of the Gryffindor stands on the Quidditch pitch. “I mean, you’re always taking that stuff. I guess it’s good, yeah, but I like actually flying, you know? Being out there, on a broom.”
“Hold on, now!” James laughed, snuggling his head into the other’s shoulder, reaching around him to grip the broom handle over his hands. “It’s easy. Just.... push off. There we go!”
“I feel like I’m close to really flying, up here,” James trailed his hand down the other’s arm, chin tucked over his messy, windblown hair, other arm wrapped around his companion’s chest. “Don’t you think it’s beautiful up here, Severus? Feels like I’m on top of the world.”
James moaned, lips meshing with his, and whispered, “We’re flying, Sev, can’t you feel it?” And he could.
“You’re an expert on potions, Sev. You can do this for me. For us.” James smiled sadly, pointing out the window to the stars beyond the astronomy tower. “Look. Just think about it, right?”
Merlin, I love you,” James laughed, quaffed the potion, gagged for a moment, then threw his arms around him firmly, kissing him soundly. “Let’s go flying, just once. Just before, right?”
He let his hand stray across a swollen belly, smiling softly, ignoring the fact that he was standing surrounded in the bright red of the Gryffindor tower. “We’ll name him Harry, Sev. Would you like that?”
James held him as he sobbed, rubbing his back, letting the other rest his check against his belly, listening to a muffled heart beat. “Dumbledore knows best, Sev. You know that. The war won’t last long, and... you won’t have to be a spy anymore. Lily and I are only doing this to keep you out of suspicion. Harry will know his father, I swear it.”
James lay on the floor of his son’s second-floor bedroom, staring unseeing up at him. The room was eerily silent, despite the flames that licked at the rest of the house, and somewhere, beyond his reach, his son was screaming.
Yes, Snape mused thoughtfully. He knew that potion. Flying, without leaving the ground.
He hated it.
Without even reading the rest of the essay, he scrawled an ‘F’ on the top, pushing it away.
Go back to Harry Potter.