Disclaimer: All characters from the Harry Potter universe belong to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Publishing, Scholastic Inc., AOL/Time Warner and associated companies. No offence, legal or otherwise, is intended by the online publication of this story. Neither is profit. Make love, not lawsuits!

Notes: One week in the lives of two soldiers, partnered together by good fate or ill. Severus/Harry written for Resonant on the occasion of her birthday.

Terrifically brighter in the black set of mind
black set of gates, the one in the room
the one on the moon
the eye set things out
the after that shifter
and he tells me where to sleep

- Clark Coolidge

Night Watchers
by

1.

Severus' father smelled of sea salt. Tar. Fishing nets. Oil. He was drunk whenever he was home. He called Severus a rat, a mangy little rat, not earning a knut for his keep. His hand was rough and callused, heavy, relentless. His voice was thick with rage.

Severus' mother smelled of dirt. Dirt and vegetables. Her skin was fresh. She lit their room with a dim Lumos when she came home. She tried not to look tired. She called Severus her boy, her very own boy, and smiled when he brought her tea. Her hand was rough too, but less so, and it was soft underneath its calluses. Severus liked it when it stroked along his arm.

'Severus,' she said, and she was was a warmth so soft against his back. Her hand was resting on his arm again, jostling him gently.

'Severus,' she said.

'Severus.'

He jerked awake, gasping, hair clinging to his temples with sweat. His wand was out. He was pointing it at Potter.

'Don't call me that,' he rasped, hating the fact that his voice shook.

Potter raised his hands. 'Sorry. Had to wake you up. Our watch is over.'

Severus calmed his breath and sat up slowly, wincing at the strain on his muscles. Bloody hexes. 'Why did you let me sleep?'

Potter snorted. 'You were practically dead on your feet, Se--Snape. You needed it.'

'I'll be the judge of what I need,' Severus hissed. He got up and brushed the dirt off his robes. 'Your foolishness could have got us both killed. There's a reason we're allocated partners on watches.'

'I'm sure there is.'

Blast him. Potter was looking at him carefully, too carefully. 'You were calling your father,' he said. Telling him to stop was left out.

Severus flushed with rage. The brat dared to think he had a right to--to-- 'And your father was just perfect, wasn't he?'

Potter didn't snap back at him. Instead he only shrugged on his cloak and tilted his head reflectively, turning his collar up against the wind. 'No,' he said quietly. 'No.'

Severus stood there for a moment, gaping, but Potter brushed past him, heading back towards camp.

'Come on,' Potter called. 'We've got to wake up Smith and Tonks for watch.'

2.

Acacia. Adder's tongue. African violet. Agaric. Agrimony. Ague root. Alfalfa. Alkanet.

Halfway through the letter 'A'.

Allspice. Almond. Aloe. Althea. Alyssum. Amaranth. Anise.

He was missing something out. He was sure of it.

Reciting herbs was the only thing keeping him awake. Stringing their names along like beads--he could see the colours of them, feel the textures of them, the sap of torn leaves under his careful fingers, sticky as cooling blood. He could almost hear the bubbling of his cauldrons then, in a neat row along his worktable--back at Hogwarts, now Voldemort's stronghold--back where he'd walked quietly from Sleeping Draught to Pepper-Up to Wolfsbane, turning their flames and checking their status as he went.

Potter's shoulder was warm against his own. Black hair silver by moonlight. Oddly child-like, the curves of Potter's lashes, the shape of his mouth in sleep.

He knew that he should wake Potter up. He knew it. There's a reason we're allocated partners on watches.

But the silence was so much more comfortable with Potter asleep. And Potter was warm. Warm against this chill. If he were awake Potter would have no excuse to be so close, to curl so near, leaning towards the heat of Severus' body like a young tree. Feed me.

Finally, when the watch was over, Severus' wand gave him a gentle spark. He reached over to touch Potter's shoulder, not letting his hand linger too long.

'Potter,' he said, voice slightly hoarse with disuse. He cleared his throat. 'Potter.'

'Hmm,' said Potter, sounding ridiculously content. His breath was warm against Severus' neck.

'Potter,' he repeated more loudly, shaking Potter awake.

'Wha--?' Potter jerked away from him--wise boy--and blinked at him owlishly through the dark. 'Watch over?'

'It is indeed,' Severus responded dryly. He got up slowly, leaning back against their tree, not bothering to give a hand up to his partner.

'I was asleep,' Potter said disbelievingly.

'Only for a few minutes.'

'Uh huh.' Potter's mouth curved for an instant--sleepy, amused--and Severus looked away.

'We'd best get back to Moody.' He tried to turn back to camp, but Potter's hand on his cloak stopped him.

'Wait, Professor Partners on Watches. Didn't you say both of us had to be awake?'

'Like I said, you were asleep for a short time only. I didn't even notice--'

'Of course you didn't.' Potter had the nerve to roll his eyes as he stood. 'Well, let's be off to Moody, then.'

They walked back to the faint lights silently, until Potter spoke up: 'Did I say anything in my sleep?'

Severus raised his eyebrows. 'Worried you let spill your sweetheart's name, Potter? Don't worry, you didn't.'

Potter laughed uncomfortably. 'Piss off, Snape.'

'Mind your manners, Potter.'

'Yes, sir.' A mock, grinning salute--and then they were at Moody's tent, and Moody was letting them in, his new magical eye rolling.

'Eaters,' he said. 'Apparated five miles off.'

The smile vanished from Potter's face.

3.

'Of course he wants to.' Pale eyes, bright eyes. Thin mouth smiling. 'Don't you, Severus?'

'I--'

'Of course he does.' White hand, soft and careful, cupping his cheek. Sliding down to his throat as smooth as silk, feeling out his pulse. Half-threat. Half-promise. Scented with perfume.

'Lucius,' Severus said, knowing better than to take a step back. There was laughter all around them, the clinking of wine glasses--and now curious, clever eyes shifting his way, eyes he could not afford to have on him. 'I have to return to Hogwarts. Dumbledore is--'

'Dumbledore this. Dumbledore that.' Lucius flicked his hair, foppishly, but Severus knew the strength of those hands. 'One would almost think he was your master.'

Nott chuckled, and Severus felt his blood run cold.

'He must think that he is my master,' Severus replied steadily. He didn't let his eyes look away from Lucius'. It was like staring down a predator--Lucius' beautiful mask of a face, his glittering eyes, that soft mouth hiding such sharp, vicious teeth. Moments of silence passed, neither blinking or glancing aside--and then Lucius sighed, relaxed, and let his mouth curve even wider.

'Too bad you'll miss the fun with the Potters, then,' he said loudly, before stepping close and letting his mouth brush Severus'. Breath sour with wine, warm with it.

Severus didn't close his eyes.

'You're a clever one, Severus,' Lucius whispered. 'But how clever, I wonder?'

And then Lucius was kissing him, kissing him truly, sharp teeth tucked away beneath the velvet rasp of tongue. Severus could see people watching them, over Lucius' richly clad shoulder--staring, smiling, lifting their glasses in toasts.

Severus finally closed his eyes, counting down the seconds--thinking about pushing Lucius away and just leaving, getting to Albus as soon as possible, telling him that they knew about Godric's Hollow--that they knew--

The taste of Lucius' mouth was changing oddly. Fresh grass now, rather than sour wine--hot and urgent instead of lukewarm and elegant. Severus pulled back, gasping for breath, and saw Harry Potter staring back at him.

Potter's mouth was red from kissing. It curved too, but it was sweet, sleepy, amused. 'Piss off, Snape,' said Potter lazily.

And Severus woke up.

4.

'They say you watched over me.'

Severus let the flap of the tent fall closed behind him as he entered, blocking the bright morning light. 'What?'

'Last night. You know. After I got hexed by Lucius Malfoy.'

'And who, pray tell, were they?'

'Colin. Ginny. They said you were asleep on that chair when they came to visit.'

'Ah. Your fan club.'

Potter only raised an eyebrow, letting his hands rest easily on top of his sheets, and waited.

Severus clenched his teeth. 'I didn't mean to--I wasn't watching you. I came in here to make sure that you'd taken your Suffragium. I was tired. I fell asleep.'

For a moment it looked as though Potter would mutter that infuriating 'uh huh' again--but Potter only allowed himself a little smile, one that somehow boiled Severus' blood even more than Potter's words might have done.

'Your breakfast,' Severus said tersely, placing the plate with its pair of sandwiches on Potter's bedside table. 'There isn't any tea left.'

'Thank you.' Potter was giving him that careful look again. 'For this and... for last night.'

'I told you I--'

'For the Suffragium,' Potter clarified.

'Hmph.' Severus paused. 'It is customary for watch partners to fetch each other breakfast, when one of them is injured.'

Potter bit into a sandwich and swallowed. 'I'm sure it is.'

5.

There was a scar on Potter's neck. Small and white and thin, slightly ribbed, like the spine of a cat.

Severus stared at it and wondered if it were a shaving accident, a lover's misadventures, or the slipping threat of a knife. After hearing what Potter had just mumbled, however, he couldn't help thinking that the second explanation might be quite plausible.

'Potter,' Severus said softly, nudging him awake with his elbow. 'You're falling asleep again.'

A lie. Potter had been asleep for almost an hour.

'Thanks,' Potter said, blinking awake. He didn't look at Snape, and he didn't smile.

Hardly a surprise.

There was a silence. Severus wondered how to broach the subject--if he should broach it--but Potter's eyes were wide and dark, like burns, and his hands were not-quite-trembling on his knees.

'Potter,' he said eventually, and saw Potter jerk with surprise. 'I have some Dreamless Sleep stocked, should you require it.'

'What?' Potter's eyes swung to him, suddenly hot, suddenly sharp. 'Why do you think I--'

'Granger,' Severus said, and Potter fell silent as though struck. 'You were saying Granger's name.'

Potter was breathing harshly. His eyes gleamed in the darkness, as blank and fixed as an animal's.

'Was she... was she your...' Lover, he didn't say, because he had no right to.

'No.' Potter was looking away from him again, his face stiff and set. 'Leave it.'

'Potter,' he tried again, 'it's been six years since she and Weasley--'

'I said leave it!'

Potter was standing up suddenly, fists clenched.

Severus got up too, more slowly, hand tight around his wand. 'Listen--'

'Fucking LEAVE IT!' Potter shouted, spittle flying--and Severus was so stunned by this reaction, unlike anything he'd seen from Potter in years, that Potter's hands against his shoulders caught him by surprise.

Potter shoved--back--and suddenly Severus was pinned against their tree, it's bark digging painfully into him as he stared at Potter's wild eyes.

'Fuck you,' Potter said. 'Fuck you. Do you know how many names you call out in your sleep? Father. Mother. Lucius.'

Severus' heart froze.

'Tell me, did you like fucking him? Sounded like it. Please, Lucius, please. Or did he ra--'

Severus shoved back, outraged--try to help the brat and he always--always--

Potter was silent as he fought back. His teeth were bared in a snarl, his hands like claws on Severus' shoulders, arms--and a distant corner of Severus' mind wondered how ridiculous they must look, two grown wizards wrestling in the shadow of a tree--and another part of him only wanted to hurt--and yet another part of him was aware that this was Potter's body, strong and young and scented like fresh grass--and he realised with something like terror and hatred that he was growing hard, and that there was a mouth at his neck, hot and liquid and--

'Ah!' he stumbled back as pain flared in his neck, and he understood, incredulously, that Potter had just bitten him--and perhaps Potter's teeth were vicious too, after all.

Potter fell away as well, mouth wet and gasping.

Severus lifted his hand to his neck carefully--felt the ridge of something like a tear there, the slight stickiness of blood.

Potter's eyes widened at that--his expression too opaque for Severus to recognise it as hunger, satisfaction, wrath or regret--and then Potter was staggering away, back towards camp, his hands pressed to his mouth.

Severus only leaned against the tree, shaking. There's a reason we're allocated partners on watches.

He was obliged to report this to Moody. Abandoning watch was against protocol.

But Severus stayed nonetheless, because it was his duty--dark leaves rustling in the night wind above him, pulse throbbing in his throat.

6.

His small cauldron was boiling again--the worktable beside it too smooth, too new, not yet marred with burns and dents. This, too, almost taken from him in the recent attack. Almost destroyed.

The fireweed was a delicate red against his fingers, feathered and giving off a faintly spicy scent--it disintegrated softly under the flat of his knife, five times horizontal, five times vertical, until it was a fine red powder almost indistinguishable from chilli.

Except that fireweed sent people to sleep, and chilli most certainly did not.

Severus had just added two pinches of it to the cauldron--two for two doses--when he heard footsteps pause outside his tent.

'Come in,' he said, not taking his eyes off the potion--and heard a shift of fabric as the tent flap was pushed aside, a draft of cool morning air entering along with his visitor.

Potter.

Severus knew without turning--knew the the tread of those feet, the shape of that body as it displaced the air. It made no sense, but he knew--and Severus said, in a voice as calm as it was when reporting coordinates to Moody: 'I'm preparing Dreamless Sleep.'

A brief silence--and Severus wondered why Potter didn't come around to face him. Was Potter ashamed? Angry?

'For me,' Potter said, voice just as calm.

'No.' And Severus finally did turn, because this was getting ridiculous--and looked at Potter levelly. Potter looked away. Ah. Ashamed. 'For the both of us.'

Potter startled at that, and Severus almost-smiled. 'I think we'd rather not hear each other's secrets anymore, wouldn't you agree?'

'Are you suggesting that we sleep soundlessly during our watches?'

'Only that we sleep dreamlessly before. Then we won't be tired enough to sleep during watch.' Let alone to dream.

'I see.'

It occurred to some ludicrous part of Severus that he should apologise--for pushing Potter too far last night, since Potter obviously had shown more tact with him, anyway, before-- Before.

Severus turned back to his worktable. Stared at his simmering potion. Almost the right shade of purple now. The colour of a bruise.

'I'm sorry.'

Severus jerked as he realised that the words had come from Potter--thick and unwieldy, stillborn in the air.

He bottled the remaining fireweed carefully. Didn't respond.

'About last night.' Potter drew a breath. 'I was--'

'Don't talk about it,' Severus said, and his voice sounded almost as polite as he wanted it to. He remembered being hard. Hot. Enraged. 'You don't have to talk about it.'

'It was Malfoy,' Potter continued stubbornly, and that name was enough to cause Severus to stiffen his back.

'When he hexed me. The night you kept watch--oh, I'm sorry--came to see that I'd had my Suffragium.'

A trace of the token Potter sarcasm there. Severus almost sneered. 'Was it the nature of the hex?'

'No. No. He'd--he reminded me. Seeing him. I--'

Another silence, in which Severus measured his breaths, remembered Potter's easy smile before, the curves of his lashes during sleep.

'Hermione. When she died. She and Ron. Only she--when I found her--they'd--he'd--'

'Potter.' Why couldn't he turn around now? Perhaps to spare himself the sight of Potter's face. Perhaps to spare Potter the sight of his. Realisation. 'You don't have to talk about this.'

'No.' Stupid, stubborn boy. 'I have to.' Another breath. 'She was in Malfoy's holding cell. She wasn't--she didn't--have her robes on. He f--f-forced--'

'Potter.'

This time, mercifully, the boy fell silent. Perhaps he couldn't speak.

The cauldron boiled in the silence. Obscenely loud.

Severus remembered Granger's bushy hair, her eager hand going up in class--the quick, reverent scratch-scratch of her quill over parchment, even to the sound of her most hated teacher's voice.

The back of his throat was bitter. Distantly, Severus realised it was with bile.

Hermione, he remembered Potter's voice mumbling in his sleep, Hermione. As if to call her back. As if to save her.

'I didn't tell anyone else,' Potter said suddenly, breaking the silence. His voice sounded steady again. 'Everyone was in such a hurry to bury the dead back then.' He made a harsh, short sound--one that was anything but a laugh. 'I even--thought that I might have dreamt it up. Maybe it was a nightmare. Maybe it didn't--happen. But then--just now, when Malfoy--I managed during the day, but at night--during watch--'

'Be quiet, Potter.'

Miraculously, Potter obeyed.

Severus resisted the sudden, unreasonable urge to sink to his knees and bury his head in his hands. Block it out. Block it all out.

Why?

He'd heard worse things. Done--

No.

The potion was translucent now. Too late to save.

He doused the flames with one flick of his wand and placed it on the table, leaving both hands free to grip the edge. Tightly. He kept his head down. His breath even.

'Severus.' Softly.

Don't call me that was at the tip of his tongue, out of habit, but his mouth wouldn't work this time.

He stared at the smooth grain of the table. Honey-brown. Quite beautiful when it gleamed in the faint light.

Potter was walking up to him, behind him--and Severus didn't flinch when he felt a hand touch his arm this time, because he had been expecting it.

'Malfoy,' Potter said, as though the name meant nothing to him. 'Did you--'

'I did what I had to do,' Severus answered. Best leave it at that. He wouldn't have done it if he hadn't had to. Wasn't that enough?

Potter didn't answer. His hand was warm, motionless, on Severus' sleeve--and for an instant Severus thought he'd pull away, spit at Severus again--but Potter did no such thing. He only slid that hand down, slowly, until it rested at the edge of Severus' glove--the black dragonhide he wore during brewing, sleek and fitting his hand neatly.

Then Potter's fingers slipped under--under the glove's edge, until they rested on Severus' inner wrist, on his veins, as though testing his pulse.

'Potter,' Severus said. 'What are you--'

'Shhh.'

Severus didn't dare move. He held his breath, feeling Potter radiate warmth behind him--a silent presence, a whisper of breath, a touch of bare skin on skin at his wrist.

He could feel his own pulse.

Finally, finally, Potter's fingers curled around his wrist--still under the glove, still startlingly intimate--and pulled at it gently until Severus turned around.

Severus turned, until he could see the collar at Potter's throat, white against the black starch of robe.

He still couldn't lift his eyes to Potter's face.

It was only when a mouth brushed his--light as air, fresh as grass, almost not-there--that he drew a sharp breath, an inhalation that loosened the painful knot in his chest, the knot that felt too much like guilt.

I'm sorry, he wanted to say. I'm sorry.

But Potter only kissed him again, on his mouth and then on his jaw, before drawing away.

Severus could feel Potter looking at his neck.

'Are you still injured?' Potter asked quietly.

Severus blinked. Slowly. Everything seemed so slow now, after the sick lurching of the conversation before--and Potter was close and warm, and Severus' mind felt like it was drugged. Morphine after trauma. 'No,' he said, his tongue feeling oddly clumsy in his mouth. Surely the absence of a wound was obvious? 'I healed it. Last night.'

'I'm sorry,' Potter said again, echoing Severus' thoughts back at him.

It's all right. Was that what Severus was supposed to say? But he couldn't say anything that felt adequate--so he finally looked--at Potter, at Potter's eyes--and heard Potter catch his breath, as though shocked at what he saw.

That thumb was running in warm circles over his wrist again, and Potter hadn't pulled away.

'We move camp tomorrow,' Potter said needlessly. 'Seventh day.'

'Yes.'

'No watch tonight, I checked the rosters--but Moody's called us in for a briefing at eight.'

'I see,' said Severus. And, because he felt like he should add something to the conversation, he said: 'The Dreamless Sleep's ruined.'

It was Potter's turn to blink. For a moment it almost seemed as though that tight, pale face would smile, but then Potter replied: 'That's all right. I don't mind you hearing my secrets.'

Don't mind. Severus thought that he should probably laugh at that, scoff, after last night's disaster--but apparently Severus' mouth had taken leave from his mind, because it said, again, 'I see.'

Now Potter did smile--even if it was only for an instant--and bit his lip. 'You don't have anywhere to be before Moody's briefing, do you?'

Today? Some part of Severus' mind ran through its list of weekly duties. 'No,' he answered.

'Good.'

Steam from the cooling cauldron made Severus' hair cling to his jaw--and he stared, with something akin to disbelief, as Potter's hand left his wrist and lifted up, up, until it reached Severus' face, smoothing that hair away.

Severus closed his eyes. Potter, as you've just pointed out, we're breaking camp tomorrow. I have packing to do. As do you. If you'd kindly leave...?

Words, so clear and clean in his head. So clear. But somehow he didn't say them, and Potter didn't leave.

7.

His cauldron was a mouth stuffed haphazardly with clothes--the cold, ruined Dreamless Sleep banished to some unfortunate region of the forest, hopefully onto some Death Eater's head.

Potter was dressed in nothing but a shirt, hurrying bare-legged from one corner of the tent to another. He had another longer, thicker scar running up his thigh--Severus remembered the feel of it under his fingers, oddly soft and vulnerable, smoother than the skin around it.

'I have to get to my tent,' Potter panted, finally pulling on a pair of trousers and his robe. His hair was a crow's nest that only worsened after he ran a hand through it. 'I don't have much, but I haven't packed a thing yet.'

'Don't take too long,' Severus said shortly from his cauldron, which he was busy shrinking along with his other bags. His voice was an irritated, rusty growl--but then it usually was that way in the mornings, and Potter, who'd woken him up after many a late-night watch, didn't seem too perturbed.

'Easy enough for you to say, Professor Punctual. I helped you pack your stuff.'

'Which is far bulkier than yours.'

'Oh, piss off.'

'Manners.'

'I say it again: Piss off.'

And then Potter was out of the tent, letting the flap fall back loudly--the closest they could get to slamming doors these days--and Severus was left alone again, another black-robed shadow in his dim, shadowed tent--his fingers stiff in the pre-dawn cold, ears ringing with silence.

Odd how silent it felt now.

Neither bubble of cauldron nor trouble of Potter to keep his mind busy.

Another week. Another camp.  Another seven days closer to Hogwarts, the home they'd been exiled from. Another battle won.

Severus thought about it, sometimes--the final battle, and what might follow it. Or not. Back in his dungeons, in the cool, almost-stale air--shelves lined with his books, even though Severus knew that they were likely destroyed. Still. He thought of it. Back to the snot-nosed pests who disturbed his peace night and day--back to dinners in the Great Hall, swirling with clouds above, laughter beneath.

Or not.

He tried to imagine the alternative--but there wasn't much to imagine, essentially because the alternative wouldn't last too long. A few nights of pain, perhaps, with Lucius' glittering eyes to watch over him--and rest at last, perhaps with Potter, perhaps without him, and Hogwarts left to strangers in the end.

It almost didn't matter. It almost wasn't real. Now, in his mind, and then, when he finally fought--it would be heat and sound and falling and not falling--that's all it was, that's all it ever was, for himself or Moody or Tonks or Potter.

He'd shrunk everything of his into one bag, slung over his shoulder, when he finally stepped out of his tent--and he collapsed that too, and shrunk it, dropping it into the deepest pocket of his robes.

The morning was cold around him, making his breath puff in front of him, as though he were an old man.

Well. Best leave that unanswered.

He looked across the camp, squinting a little against the morning mist, and saw Potter emerge from his own tent. Collapse it. Shrink it. Drop it into his bag.

Movements practiced week after week, second nature now--would they even know what to do with Hogwarts, if they won it back? Would they know what to do with the same soil under their feet, the same beds under their bodies, the same ceiling over their heads?

Perhaps not.

Potter was trudging across the camp to him, to him, and something about that made Severus' breath catch in his chest. Potter smiled as he waved greetings to the others, to Ginny Weasley and Finnigan and Smith and Tonks and Brown--and Severus' mouth remembered, quite suddenly, the taste of fresh winter grass.

* FIN *