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“You’re going to break your hand if you keep at it,” Severus warned. Though how much he cared about Harry’s actions was difficult to assess, seeing as he appeared perfectly at ease where he was sitting on the hard, stone floor.
Harry didn’t let up on slamming his fists into the wall. The room they were locked up in had bare grey walls, no window, and since it had closed behind them, also no door of such to speak of. Their only light came from an eerily-glowing green, gloopy orb stuck to the wall.
“One of us has to try and get out of here! There was a door here when we came in.” Harry started slapping, punching and jabbing the wall again, desperate to make the door reappear.
“Harry –”
“Why don’t you care?” Harry’s voice cracked. “They’re going to kill us, Severus! Why else lock us in here? This time they’re really going to kill us. And all they have to do is leave us in this room for long enough. Our oxygen will run out long before we have to worry about food or water.”
“We’re not dying any time soon, so relax. Getting worked up about it isn’t going to solve anything.”
Severus shut his eyes and leaned his head against the wall. The sickly-green light of the orb was making Harry’s face look deathly ill, and that was more upsetting to him than their potential tomb.
Harry sat down on the ground next to him, side pressed firmly against his.
“So you have a plan, I take it? If you’re not worried. What is it, then?”
“I have no plan,” Severus said serenely. “I just know we’re not dying in here; there’s no chance.”
“Because…?”
Severus shrugged. “You’ll pull some Harry Potter Luck out of somewhere and one of the walls will just vanish. Or it’ll turn out one of our kidnappers has a crush on you and wants to save you. Or… I don’t know, a unicorn will appear in the corner of the room. Whatever it is, this isn’t the end of either of us.”
Harry stiffened beside him and curled in on himself, putting his forehead on his knees. Severus reached out a hand and started to stroke Harry’s hair, glad Harry was finally seeing sense.
It took a while before Severus realised Harry was crying.
Severus stopped slouching against the wall and sat up, moving closer. His hand that had been petting Harry dropped to his side.
“What is the matter?” he snapped. “You aren’t secretly claustrophobic, are you?” That would explain why Harry had been prepared to break his hand rather than think about things logically.
When Harry looked at him finally, Severus was surprised at the anger directed at him.
“You always promised me you’d never think those things about me. That you’d never fall for the hype like everyone always does.”
Severus frowned. “I don’t, and I never shall. You’re still impertinent, rude, barely holding a job down. You only managed to kill the Dark Lord through pure luck!”
Severus left out his earnest criticism that Harry had also decided they should be fuck buddies. It was poor judgement on Harry’s part, but Severus was just as much to blame for the arrangement, so on this topic, he stayed quiet.
“Right, exactly. And yet you’re certain we’re not dying in here.”
“Of course not,” Severus repeated. “Because –” he paused. “Because…” he tried again, his voice creaky.
Oh.
It truly hadn’t even occurred to him to be worried throughout the ordeal of their kidnapping and subsequent imprisonment. Harry was there, so what was there to worry about?
“You promised you would always treat me the same. That you and you alone wouldn’t put me on a pedestal no matter what happened. That I could rely on you, trust you to make sure I don’t ever become the next Voldemort.”
Oh.
It turned out, Severus was just like everyone else sometimes. He breathed, he ate, he slept, and just like so many before him, he fell in love with Harry bloody Potter.
“I hate you,” Harry muttered.
There was a pop and suddenly the missing door reappeared, slightly ajar.
“Not as much as I hate myself,” Severus growled. He got to his feet and walked out, not once looking back. Whatever was out there, whoever was out there, couldn’t be more frightful than what he was leaving behind.