
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/7866649.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Fandom:
      Harry_Potter_-_J.K._Rowling
  Relationship:
      Harry_Potter/Severus_Snape, Harry_Potter/Other(s)
  Character:
      Harry_Potter, Severus_Snape, James_Potter
  Additional Tags:
      Series, Drama, Romance, Incest, Multiple_Partners
  Collections:
      Ink_Stained_Fingers
  Stats:
      Published: 2003-11-02 Words: 1923
****** Black Pearl Tears - 01 ******
by Yxonomei [archived by ISF_Archivist]
Summary
     James wasn’t killed; he was in a coma. Now he’s awake and trying to
     relate to his son. Perhaps he’s relating too well?
Notes
     This story was originally archived at Ink_Stained_Fingers, which was
     created in 2002 as a home for Harry Potter slash fiction. To preserve
     the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an
     Open Doors-approved project in January 2015. We e-mailed all authors
     about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached
     everyone. If you are (or know) this author or artist, please contact
     me using the e-mail address at the Ink_Stained_Fingers_collection
     profile.
     Author's notes: Set during the summer after GoF. Primarily JP/HP with
     a side of JP/HP/SS. 1st person PoV are the present; 3rd person Pov
     are the past.
Black Pearl Tears - 01




  ::Prologue::
  Dewed with sweat, I lie trembling in the arms of my lover. His flesh is
  always cool and dry, even as we both strain towards orgasm. Gently his hands
  wander up and down my back as I burrow against his broad chest. I am sore and
  sated. My muscles ache and burn with flashfloods of delicious agony.
  "So perfect," my lover whispers huskily as his hands play about the curves of
  my ass. I smile dreamily and trace random patterns on the expanse of chest
  beneath my cheek.
  I know this is wrong. I know others would be horrified and disgusted. But how
  can I do anything else? I love him so much. We've been separated for too
  long. This was the only possible way for us to reconnect the diverging lines
  of our past. We were both so needy, so lonely, so desperate for affection
  long denied us by others.
  It started innocently enough: friendly touches to assure ourselves that the
  other was indeed real; a nightmare driving me to his bed in the dark of the
  night for platonic reassurance; a chaste kiss of affection. Then the touches
  began to linger. The reassurances began to lose their platonic feel. The
  kisses fell upon yielding lips.
  This was the final step of expressing profound and devoted love. We can take
  our devotion no further; there is no other pinnacle to ascend to.
  This is the natural unnatural conclusion of our bond. And I cannot imagine
  being with him in any other way.
  After all, I love my daddy.
  ::Chapter One::
  Little Harry James Potter watches his friends and classmates depart for their
  homes. The summer holidays are here and school is over. He sits on the
  sweeping stone steps leading to the towering doors of reinforced oak that
  guard the entrance to Hogwarts. He smiles and waves goodbye with all the
  sincerity and animation of cleverly controlled puppet. When the last child is
  whisked away for a summer of academic indolence, Harry slumps in such a way
  as to appear as if a giant, invisible hand is slowly crushing him. Or perhaps
  it is the burden of responsibility.
  How many fourteen year olds must bear the weight of the Messiah?
  Everyone else can go home, but Harry can't. He thinks--no, he knows--it's
  because of the Final Trial and Cedric. He wants to laugh hysterically. He's
  finally free of a Dursley Summer, but at the cost of another human being's
  life. It might as well have been his own mouth from which the fatal words
  flew; his own wand from which the spell shot forth.
  So he is alone in the only place he has ever considered a home--but now he
  wonders if this is because of the people and not the rooms and corridors.
  Already the stones seem as though they are settling down for a well-earned
  respite from the activity of a restless multitude of children and their
  pranks. The foundations seem tot shift in preparation for sleep. A rocky sigh
  echoes subtly through the air and the tension drains from the stones. The
  ancient institution settles down and only the birds and insects fill the day
  with sound. He misses his friends and classmates with a poignancy hitherto
  unfelt. It feels as though he as been cast out of the world, banished for his
  sins and failures.
  Once again he is orphaned.
  "Harry?" The boy turns to find his Head of House standing behind him with a
  sternly compassionate look on her face. "Dumbledore would like to talk to you
  in his office. Today's password is `Strawberry Laces'"
  "Okay." Harry picks himself up from the stone steps and brushes the dirt off
  of the seat of his pants. Looking past McGonagall, he walks towards the
  threshold.
  "Harry..." The child pauses while passing the concerned professor. "Are you
  okay?"
  "Of course, Professor," he tells her with a bright smile. She frowns, not
  fooled by his cheerful faade. His smile slowly wilts and finally fades to a
  weary grimace. "I'm dealing. I'll be fine, ma'am." She nods shortly; her eyes
  are suspiciously bright. He continues inside, but not before catching the
  sound of a hastily suppressed sob.
  =============================================================================
  I, at the twinkling behest of Albus, search for the elusive Potter duo, who
  seem to think themselves too good to attend dinner at the scheduled time.
  Albus has repeatedly requested all of us to display a certain sort of
  indulgent patience with them. They have been dead to each other for around a
  decade and a half. I would have found magnanimity far more accessible if a)
  they were anyone else and b) Albus has decided that my time is so valueless
  and untroubled by prior obligations that I should be their babysitters; I had
  quite enough of that during the academic year, thank you very much.
  After checking their rooms, the Gryffindor tower and the Quidditch pitch, I
  find them sitting side by side down by the lake. There they are, twin banes
  of my continued existence and the gods' own personal joke on me. I have
  endured two generations of Potters and their insults, and now it's a family
  reunion.
  I'm about to call their names when something about them causes me to pause.
  Unease trickles down my spine like a melting icicle. There is something
  indefinably off about the tableau before me. The older Potter's arms embrace
  the younger, who leans trustingly against him. Father and son appear far too
  comfortable together. There is no sign of the inherent power struggle between
  generations, the subtle tension between parent and child. Their body
  language, closeness of their forms and the gentle inclination of their heads,
 suggests a level of intimacy beyond that of mere filial devotion.
  No, this is just wild supposition born of fatigue and disgust. I am simply
  looking for anything with which to vindicate further grudges. It's absurd to
  think that...
  I clear my throat loudly before snarling their names. I make sure to load my
  tone with all those years of loathing and anger.
  Is it my imagination or do they stiffen and almost imperceptivity move apart?
  =============================================================================
  Swinging trainer clad feet erratically, Harry Potter sits on--or rather in,
  due to the quicksand like quality of the cushions--one of the large,
  comfortable armchairs in Headmaster Dumbledore's office. The room is a
  cluttered space of various magical, and the occasional muggle, paraphernalia
  gathered over the course of a rather prolonged lifespan. Squeezed onto every
  available space on the wall is an assortment of portraits featuring the
  sleeping, and snoring in some cases, portraits of former headmasters and
  headmistresses. Harry suspects their all faking slumber. Occasionally he
  catches one with an eye open with curiosity.
  Dumbledore is nowhere in sight. Fawkes is there, though. He's looking a
  little worse for wear. The child wonders if he's going to combust soon or if
  he's just molting or something.
  "Ah, Harry, you're here," the Headmaster says jovially, blue eyes all a-
  twinkle. His robes are a brilliant acid green embroidered with frolicking--
  literally--penguins and leopards in blue and purple. Harry blinks rapidly and
  fights down chromatic nausea.
  "Yes, sir." The child fidgets nervously in the chair.
  "Lemon drop?"
  "No thank you, sir." He doesn't attempt to fool the aged man into thinking
  he's okay. Twinkling blue eyes see far more than then the genial face in
  which they are set professes. The man might play the role of the harmless old
  dodderer, but it is only an act and pity the fool who underestimates his
  benevolent smile.
  "Harry, I have some news for you and something to show you." The man's tone
  is gentle and grandfatherly. The boy feels repressed tears gathering. He
  hasn't cried yet, but Dumbledore's kindness, his comforting presence are
  enough to elicit a few drops.
  "Is this about Voldemort"--the name punctures the air on an exclamation laden
  with rage and hate--"Or...C-Cedric?" The last is the merest exhalation laced
  with sound.
  "Not precisely," the old wizard tells him with gentle compassion. The twinkle
  dims.
  If Harry had known the touch of a gentle hand during his stay at the
  Dursleys, he might have sought reassurance with another human being. As it,
  and as it was, he knows only to wrap things up so tightly his lungs begin to
  tear and push them deep down to sit, cancerous and malignant, in his stomach.
  "Am I going to be kicked out? Sir?" His voice is soft and as fragile as a cut
  crystal figurine. He looks at his battered trainers and envisions a world in
  them. Will he lose the only refuge he has ever known? Will it be back to the
  skittering spiders and too-small cupboard?
  "No, child, you are not and never will, if I have any say in the matter." The
  boy thinks he would like a lie to soothe the agitation in his mind. He wants
  Dumbledore to tell him that he won't ever let them, the Ministry, his
  relatives or Voldemort, take him away. But that is too much to ask of the man
  with the white beard and many laugh lines. He isn't God.
  "So what is it?"
  "First off, I would like to let you know that you don't have to return to
  your relatives if you wish not to." The child feels a rush of sheer pleasure
  suffuse his being. He is almost dizzy with the unadulterated relief. Sorrow
  slinks away for the moment.
  "Really?" he breathes with barely suppressed hope. The Headmaster nods
  solemnly, but the twinkle is nearly back full force, though tempered with
  something sharper.
  "Would you like--"
  "Yes, please!" Dumbledore nods his acceptance and beckons Harry to stand.
  "Now that that is settled, I have something I think you will be interested in
  seeing. This should also explain the reason for your absence from the
  Dursleys." The man's tone is mild, but there is the slightest inflection on
  the last word that swells with the man's opinion of his relatives.
  Harry is curious despite himself. He quickly scrambles out of the chair and
  hurries to the man's side. Dumbledore wouldn't show him anything bad. Perhaps
  the older wizard has something nice hidden away just for Harry. He's always
  thought that magic had a cure for everything, that there was nothing that
  magic couldn't do. Perhaps magic even has a way to strip away guilt.
  =============================================================================
  ::Epilogue::
  This is wrong. I know this, yet I can't bring myself to stop. I should be the
  strong one. I am the adult--though I doubt Harry has ever truly been a child
  (Albus has told me of Lily's relatives, in detail). But he is my world. He is
  my last link to a slain goddess. He is my grail of blood.
  No one will understand what we have. Not even Albus, compassionate,
  sympathetic man that he is. They will all turn their noses up in disgust and
  condemn me, and Harry indirectly as a result. He has seen too much; he does
  not need this stigma attached to him. Yet I can't help myself.
  I have been absent from his life for fourteen years. He thought I was dead
  for the entirety of that time. I had merely--I say `merely,' but that is an
  understatement--been held in suspended animation for ten of those years,
  while I remained comatose for the remaining four.
  We are making up for lost time. We love each other. Isn't that enough?
  ::End Chapter One::
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