Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Chapter 58 – Serious Talk

-II-

Draco looked shocked. "I can't tell her about it!"

"Why not, Draco?"

"Why not? Are you crazy? I want her to see me as a man and not a..." Ashamed he looked away.

Severus sighed. "You really should speak with Red Horse. He said he can understand why you think you aren't manly and your problems with Hermione. I think he could help you much better than I can. It seems my word doesn't have any value in this case. Nevertheless I say again that you are manly, Draco. I'm sure Hermione sees it the same way."

"It's not that your word doesn't count for me. It's just... you can't understand it, Severus."

"I know, and I hate that I can't help you with this, but I know that Red Horse would like to help you as well. He just doesn't know how to start a conversation with you about it. He will understand."

Draco leaned against Severus shoulder and just sat there with him for the next half an hour. That's what he loved about his guardian. He always was there for him, even if it was just to hold him in his strong arms and sit silently with him.

-II-

"I'm sorry, Harry. I know it is too much to ask for your forgiveness, but please let me explain why I behaved like I did."

Harry nodded at Aiden, gesturing at him to go on.

"I... I was jealous and angry. I can't really say which feeling was more prominent. I was very angry at Light Arrow because he still wasn't thinking that I was ready to leave the camp. You know Maya came to the camp two months after me, and I thought it should be my turn to have the good-bye sweat lodge. I was angry at Black Hawk as well for treating me as if I'm stupid and not worth to leave the camp yet. That was the day my jealousy started. The day back at the paddock when he said that I wasn't ready to leave, he never explained what I have to do or gain to be ready to leaving. It felt as if he only had time for you and Draco. When Light Arrow started to spend more time with the two of you as well, I became even angrier. Then you came to the running training, too. Until then this was my special thing with Crying Horse. It felt as if everywhere were I was, you were as well."

Harry looked over to Light Arrow and Black Hawk. Both man sat relaxed in the two armchairs. Harry was a bit worried because Aiden still seemed to hate him. "I didn't ask them to be with me or spending time with me. You can have them back. You only have to convince them that they should leave me alone." Harry was angry now. What did they expect from him? That he was listening to all this shit? Saying that he was sorry for taking them away from Aiden? He hadn't asked for this. No, he would have preferred if they had let him alone. Angrily he stood and headed for the door. When he reached it the door handle didn't butch. Frustrated, he turned around to glare at Light Arrow.

"Sit down again, Harry, and tell Aiden why you are so angry about what he said." The calmness of Light Arrow was infuriating Harry even more. Melissa and the permission to meet her was out of his head and pure anger flared in him. The last weeks he hadn't felt so frustrated and angry, and now Aiden was back, it was all back. Nothing had changed. He still could feel this burning hot fire in him. This insatiable thirst of getting power over himself and his decisions back. The power to leave whenever he wanted. The power to be alone whenever he wanted. The first time in days Harry started to scrape at his arms again, almost immediately drawing blood.

Light Arrow was quickly at Harry side and before the boy even noticed him, he had grabbed both of Harry's hands and restrained them. "No, Harry. Stop it!" Determined he looked in the shocked face of Harry.

"Let me go! I don't want to hear this all. It's not my fault. I didn't even want to be here!" Harry jerked hard at his hands, but Light Arrow had a death grip on them.

"Calm down, Harry! Now!"

Angrily Harry looked at Aiden. The other boy stood shocked in front of the couch he had sat on while talking to Harry. His mouth stood open, and he looked puzzled at Harry. That was when Harry realized that Aiden had no idea why he had reacted like this. So it wasn't meant like Harry had understood it.

"Thanks for calming down, Harry. Can we go back to the couch now?" Light Arrow asked.

"I... I..."

"The couch, Harry, and then I will have a look at your arm."

Harry groaned. Knowing that he had shown weakness in front of Aiden. Then remembering that Light Arrow would decide about his one-to-one after this talk, he almost felt like crying. "I'm sorry." He was on the couch already, and Light Arrow was sitting beside him, examining his arm.

"Go get Harry's salve from White Cloud, Aiden."

Harry whimpered in protest that Light Arrow had sent Aiden. It was just adding to his humiliation.

"Harry, why did you do this?" Light Arrow asked, still holding both of Harry's hands in his.

Harry let his head think. "I felt this anger again. It was so unfair that he let it look as if I was responsible for all this, but I didn't ask for you to spend time with me." Aiden appeared behind him, out of breath. He must have run to gather the salve from White Cloud.

"White Cloud will be here in a second. She is just getting the bandages," Aiden said, gulping for air.

Harry groaned. Bye-bye any chance to get rid of the one-to-one.

"Come over here, Aiden, and let Light Arrow take care of Harry." Black Hawk waved Aiden over to him, and the boy went awkwardly to him. Aiden yelped a bit when Black Hawk pulled him on his lap. The protest quickly died down, and Aiden leaned against Black Hawk's chest. It had been so long that some of the adults had offered him comfort like this, and he enjoyed it.

"You seem to have missed a very important word in all what Aiden said," Light Arrow said calmly while adding the salve. When Harry looked puzzled at him, he said, "Feel, Harry. Aiden said it felt as if etc etc. He didn't say it really was like that."

White Cloud bustled into the room and went straight to Harry. She lifted his chin to look in his face. "Anything else hurt beside your arm?"

"My dignity?"

White Cloud rolled her eyes and then started to examine Harry's arm.

"I already applied the salve. You just need to wrap it." Light Arrow held Harry's arm from his body so White Cloud had better access. In a few seconds Harry's arm was bandaged and the salve soothed the burning of the scratches a bit. When she was finished she leaned over and kissed his forehead. After that she left.

"Ready to let Aiden tell the rest of his explanation?" Light Arrow asked, not leaving Harry's side, even drawing him closer until Harry rested against his chest.

Harry nodded and looked ashamed over to Aiden. "I'm sorry I didn't let you speak out."

"It's okay. I know you are angry at me. I would be as well if I were you. I'm very ashamed of how childish I was and how much I hurt you. I'm really sorry."

"And now?" Harry asked, really not knowing how things would go from now on.

"Now I hope you can forgive me, and we can try again. If you want I even will get out of your way as much as it is possible here. I could quit the running training and the wrestling if you want me too."

Harry could hear the fear out of it. Aiden didn't want to give this up, but he also didn't look fearfully at Light Arrow. This was a sign that he was not saying this all to impress him. Aiden was looking at Harry all the time. He meant it as a real offer.

"I think we should try to forget and start anew. We can hardly avoid each other. In some way, I can understand you. I think I would be like this as well if someone came and Severus spent more time with the newbie." Harry looked down at his hands. "Or Black Hawk."

"So we start anew?" Aiden asked happily. It seems a big burden had been lifted from his chest by Harry's words.

"There is still one thing I want from you before I will forget what happened."

"What?"

"I want you to apologize to Melissa."

Aiden smiled. It was so seldom that Harry was a bit taken aback. "I would have done it anyway."

/

"You're sure you don't want to come with us?" Black Hawk asked Red Horse for the third time while Crying Horse, Severus and he climbed into the red pickup.

"Yes, I'm sure. You know I don't like to be in town or with many people."

"It's a shame, bro. We will miss you." Black Hawk gave Red Horse a brotherly pet on his shoulder.

"I will ask Draco to help me check on the wild horses." He looked meaningful at Severus who was sitting beside Crying Horse on the double passenger seat. Severus nodded understandingly.

"Oh those private messages. How I love them. Be happy that I'm not the jealous type. Otherwise I could believe you like Severus more than me, Red Horse," Black Hawk said jokingly and closed the driver's door. Then he looked at Crying Horse, who said uncommonly silent beside Severus. "What's going on, bro? Cheer up, we are heading to town." He buffed Crying Horse's shoulder hard.

Red Horse laughed seeing Crying Horse's puzzled face. Red Horse knew why Severus and Black Hawk were taking Crying Horse into town for a mans evening, and he hoped it would help. Seeing Rose so sad lately was hurting him. Crying Horse need to understand that he was part of the brotherhood now. Too bad that Black Hawk seemed to be overexcited about this whole trip. He sometimes doesn't concentrate on the task in front of him when there are too many distracting things around him. Red Horse hoped Black Hawk would calm down and everything would go all smoothly.

"Why are we here? Crying Horse asked after they had sat down in the medium sized pub. It was not one of those dirty gin mills. Even some women were sitting at the bar and at the few tables. Some men were playing cards, others just drank with friends. It was still early evening and no-one was drunk or making trouble.

"To party a bit. What else?" Black Hawk said and petted Crying Horse on his back roughly. "Wait here I will get us some drinks."

Crying Horse looked worried over to Severus. "I don't think this all was a good idea. I don't know what this all means, but I know that everyone is worried about this trip and Black Hawk is way too cheerful to get some alcohol."

Severus looked worried at the nervous man beside him. He couldn't stop his own bad feeling about Black Hawk's excitement. Maybe it was really too long since he had been out of the camp. Severus hoped Black Hawk would calm down and know his limits. "We just will watch out for him. That's what brothers do for each other." Killing two birds with one stone. That gave Crying Horse the first hint of why they brought him here and made sure that Severus got help if Black Hawk overdoes it.

Crying Horse looked at Severus skeptical. "Will you tell me now why I'm here?"

"That's just a little trip between brothers, relax, Crying Horse."

"Brothers? Oh, come on, Severus. I'm no brother to you nor to Black Hawk."

"Already in the deep discussion stuff?" Black Hawk asked while he placed to glasses on the table. "Here, hope that's okay." He pushed the beer mug over to Severus. "It's apple juice. I just thought you don't want to have it too obvious."

Severus rolled his eyes. "I hate apple juice."

"I can get you tomato juice, but that would look weird in that mug and it would add to your vampire reputation." He made some stupid noises that should sound mysterious and waved his hands in front of Severus.

"Thanks. I think you finally got the attention of all the guests here. So much about not attracting attention."

Black Hawk looked around and winked at two ladies who sat close by at a table. "Some attentions are good ones, don't you think?" He looked still grinning at Crying Horse, but then stopped abruptly. "Not for you." He shook his finger warningly in front of Crying Horse. "You already have the best women on this planet."

"Just ignore him, Crying Horse," Severus said and rolled his eyes. "Now I see why you don't want to be our brother." It was worth trying if the young man would take the bite.

"What? I never said I don't want to-"

"You don't want to?" Black Hawk said dumbfounded and let himself fall on his chair. Then he grabbed his mug and took a big gulp of beer.

"Of course I want... I ... Damn, you two. You are twisting my words."

"So you want? Then that is settled. So no more stupid talk like I don't belong to the family. Let's drink to this." Severus raised his mug and shortly after him did the other two. He knew it wasn't that easy, but it was a beginning.

Black Hawk however seemed to be happy with that and glanced over to the women again. "How about I go over there and ask those two young ladies to join us?"

"How about we keep this evening a manly evening as we had planned it?" Severus said warningly. Black Hawk really needed to go out more to not be so hyper. It wasn't something unusual for Black Hawk to behave like this as soon as they were out of the camp or out of the sight of the children, but after seeing him almost all the time as the reasonable and calm helper in the camp and then seeing him as the free Black Hawk was a bit of a shock for people who didn't know him.

"Yeah, yeah," Black Hawk said a bit disappointed. He wasn't coming out of the camp much. "So tell us about Helena. Did she have a talk with you?" Black Hawk teased Severus about the secretary in his school.

"You already know she has. So why do you ask?"

"To entertain Crying Horse, of course. Look he is all tense." Black Hawk gestured with his glass at Crying Horse and almost spilled some beer. Quickly he lifted it up to his lips and drank deeply again.

"Maybe you should take it easy, Black Hawk. I don't want to be the one explaining Light Arrow why you can't go straight when we come back. I'm sure he will wait for us," Severus said.

"Yeah, yeah. Isn't a man allowed to celebrate that he is finally free again? Oh, how much I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight. I swear next time Harry earns himself a one-to-one I let him sleep on the damn mat on the floor, and I will take his bed. Not that I mind his company but damn that floor is hard."

"Knowing Harry, I would guess you will have the opportunity more than ones before we leave," Severus said.

"If you leave, Night Rain," Black Hawk said and then looked sadly in his empty mug. A quick glance at Crying Horse mug showed him that the man had not even drank half of his beer and Severus hated his apple juice that much that it seems he hadn't drank from it at all. "One more cannot hurt."

"We've hardly been here for twenty minutes, Black Hawk," Severus scolded his brother.

"Yeah, I know. I will take more time with the next one." With that, Black Hawk went to the barkeeper again.

"You should have taken his money, Severus. I really don't like how this is going. Rose will kill us, and I don't even want to think about Light Arrow and White Cloud." Crying Horse shifted nervously on his chair.

"He is an adult. I can hardly take his money from him. We just need to watch out," Severus said. The problem was his hands started to shiver and his eyes wandered several times longingly over to the beers of the other two. It seems it wasn't as easy to be close to alcohol as Severus had thought. Too tempting was the idea of forgetting all the pain and worry for one evening. Having the feeling that he could drown his problems in alcohol and only realizing in the morning that the damn problems are able to swim very well.

Black Hawk let the mug drop on the table violently. Severus nostrils flared when he smelled a familiar smell. It was firewhisky. It seems Black Hawk had drunk some at the bar before he had come back.

"I think you already have enough," Severus said, frustrated.

"What? We just started the evening. Come on, cheer up. Maybe you should try a bit as well." Black Hawk slurred.

Crying Horse sucked in his breath. It was obvious that Black Hawk already wasn't thinking clearly any longer. He could smell the firewhisky as well. Who knows how much Black Hawk had drained of it secretly at the bar.

"Excuse me for a moment," Severus stood up and headed for the toilet. Locking his cabin, he sat down on the closed seat and tried to make his hands to stop shivering. Nothing helped. He could feel this odd taste in his mouth and the stupid feeling as if it was all dry. Almost jumping out of the cabin, he ran over to the sinks and splashed cold water in his face. No he was not ready to look out of Black Hawk, he couldn't even look out for himself. It was too early for this confrontation. He looked at his image in the mirror and then fumbled for the money in his pocket.



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