Title: Human All the Way Through
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Snape/Harry
Content Notes: Forced bonding, angst, violence, AU
Rating: R
Wordcount: This part 4700
Summary: By this point, bonding with Snape to save the world is far from the worst thing Harry's been asked to do.
Author's Notes: This is another of my Advent fics, for what was originally an Advent prompt last year by pcornelius: A thought which surfaces from time to time: Harry/Draco or Harry/Severus, presumably. Someone (not necessarily Dumbledore) figures out how to get rid of the Horcrux in Harry. It requires a ritual bonding with someone who carries the Dark Mark - which will itself also be eliminated in the process. Nobody is entirely pleased. On the other hand, even Dumbledore isn't crazy enough to prefer the alternative... The second part will be posted tomorrow.

Human All the Way Through

Severus grimaced at the ancient grimoire in front of him. There were times he wished he had never become a Death Eater because of the things he had been forced to learn, rather than do. Access to books like this, bound in human skin and reeking of old smells that not even Preservation Charms could entirely banish, were one of those consequences.

He read the page again. Then he cast another detection charm. He'd already used a host of those, mostly to check for invisible ink and other methods of concealing secrets. Many of the old writers used those, to conceal some vital step in a ritual or ingredient in a potion, their position being that someone stupid enough to view anything so Dark as a panacea deserved to suffer.

But no ink suddenly brightened and wavered into being on the page, either, just as no torn corner had suddenly reappeared to connect with the paper, and no code had been revealed, and no subtle substitution of words twisted upwards from the carefully-prepared palimpsest that had been hidden underneath the surface. The ritual was described exactly as it was.

Severus sighed. This was the knowledge that could help defeat the Dark Lord.

But because of what else it was, he still read it four times and committed it to memory before he took the book to Dumbledore.

Harry sat with his back straight. He had had two years of wartime training now, since his sixth year when he and Dumbledore had managed to destroy two more Horcruxes, the locket and the diadem, before Voldemort had wised up and gathered the cup and Nagini close to him. In that time, he'd heard enough scoldings from the Order members about incorrect posture to always pull himself upright automatically now.

"How much time does the ritual require to prepare?" he asked.

Snape gave him a surprised glance. Even though Dumbledore had called Harry here to discuss the ritual, he seemed to think Harry should sit silent and not ask intelligent questions. Harry gave him a thin smile and faced Dumbledore, to make it clear where he expected the answer to come from.

But it was Snape who answered. "It takes a full month, from the dark of the moon to the dark of the moon. We need to bleed on the ritual site each day in between, and speak our intentions aloud at sunset and midnight to seal the invocation."

Harry nodded. He had thought it would probably be something like that, especially since he'd become familiar with the outline of rituals and curses in detail from sixteen to nineteen. "And how common and required is the ritual sexual component?"

Snape choked and flung an accusing glare at Dumbledore. It was funny how much better Harry had got at reading him since the serious start of the war. Or maybe he just hid his emotions worse now, knowing what they all knew about the way they could die. "You told him about that, Albus?"

"He's going to have to participate," Dumbledore said, at the same time Harry said, "It's a common part of moon rituals like this, of course I knew about that."

Harry smiled at Dumbledore and turned back to Snape, eyeing him critically. There was little about him that would make him a suitable candidate for a bonding, he thought. One of Harry's friends would have been better if they were going to rely on love and trust to defeat Voldemort, the way Dumbledore always said they would. On the other hand, Darker rituals would probably require someone like Snape.

"It's because you carry the Dark Mark, right?"

Snape looked as if he was about to faint, because no one had told him Harry was that smart. Harry gave him a smug little smile and continued, "So the bonding is through sex entirely. I don't think it's any more welcome to you than to me."

"That would be correct," said Snape in a strangled tone.

Harry turned back to Dumbledore. It was still hard to tell from Snape how bad this was. "It would require a permanent bond, sir? And what sort of Dark Arts besides the bloodletting and the invocations?" Harry knew, now, after years of experiencing curses and casting them, that words could be just as much a horrible thing as sex or pain.

Dumbledore looked at him with a tender pride. "Yes, Harry, it would be permanent. But in this case, it involves no torture or…unusual sexual practices. It would require Professor Snape to have sex with you in the way that two men usually do."

Harry just nodded, and noticed, again, the way that Snape looked on the verge of spluttering. He really didn't know what Harry had spent his time doing, did he? At least not the reading up on ritual practices. "Who would be in charge of the bond, sir?"

"What do you mean, Harry? And do remember that I invited you to call me Albus."

He had it, but Harry was incapable of doing that. He thought of the Headmaster as a mentor and a war-leader, but not a friend, not really. "Yes. I mean, who would be on top? The readings I've done said that the person who's on top is usually in charge of the bond."

"What have you been allowing the boy to read, Albus?"

Harry shot Snape a deeply amused glance with one eye only. Mostly, he concentrated on Dumbledore, and saw the way that he hid a smile behind his hand. "Only what he needed for the war, Severus."

Snape subsided into muttering, and Dumbledore faced Harry, his face grave again. "Because of the special circumstances surrounding you and this ritual, Harry, then it would have to be Professor Snape."

Harry took in a slow breath of air through his mouth. Well, he had already suspected that, although he'd learned to ask questions anyway. "All right, sir. As long as he doesn't try to abuse me, I don't mind."

"What special circumstances? Albus, I told you, the only reason the ritual would have to proceed in a certain way is if—"

"There seemed to be many circumstances that might challenge the successful execution of the ritual, Severus," Dumbledore interrupted, his voice mild. "However, the one I'm referring to at the moment is the fact that Mr. Potter is a virgin."

At least he was the one to say it, so I didn't have to.

Snape now looked like a pale tomato, as if his face couldn't decide whether to be red or white. He turned to Harry and blurted, "How?"

"Well, you see," Harry said, and leaned towards Snape, and dropped his voice low, so that Snape leaned in thinking he was about to hear a secret, "I was born that way, and then I didn't have sex."

"Harry, don't tease Professor Snape, please."

Snape gave Harry a deeply offended look. Harry only grinned. It had been worth it, especially when he knew that Snape would do anything he had to to stop Voldemort. "I meant—why have you not already harnessed your virginity in some ritual that might help us defeat him, Potter?"

Harry snorted. "What ritual has there been before this? Besides—"

He stopped. Dumbledore gave him a glance full of compassion. Harry nodded to him, and said nothing, even though Snape was glaring curiously back and forth between them. He knew the reason.

Harry had wanted it to mean something. He had sometimes hoped that love would spring up within him for Luna or Ginny, or even Hermione, although that would have caused all sorts of problems with her and Ron.

But it hadn't. And Harry had eventually resigned himself to dying a virgin. If that was what it took to stop Voldemort, well, he didn't mind so much. Sex was only one on a list of many, many things he hadn't had the chance to do.

And Harry simply refused to have sex just because he was tired or bored or someone offered, even though there had been plenty of times like those during the past few years. At least now it would mean something.

Not what I originally hoped it would. But the war taints everything it touches.

Harry turned to Snape. "I'd like a promise that you won't abuse me," he said. "That's really all I require."

For some reason, Snape had decided the best way to look at him was with eyes that never blinked. "And what about not killing you?"

"You want the satisfaction of being free of Voldemort more than you want the satisfaction of killing me. That kind wouldn't last long."

"It would not be satisfying at all."

Harry blinked, then inclined his head. He had wondered if there was anything that would get Snape to admit that, but no matter how well they worked together, they were still uneasy allies at best. It seemed he had decided to admit, for once, that his animosity for Harry's dead father was less important than life.

"What concerns me more is the fact that you would willingly put your life in my hands."

Harry opened his mouth to ask what sort of thing that was to say, and then realized how Snape was using the word "concerns." "It's what I have to do," he said simply. "And I want this war done more than anything."

"More than your freedom to love who you will?"

"Yes. Do you think I would still be a virgin if I had found someone I loved and trusted?"

Snape finally looked away, but his brow was still furrowed, as if something about Harry's answer didn't make sense to him.

Dumbledore clasped his hands and beamed at them, not looking uncomfortable at all with this talk of murder and virginity. But then, it took a lot to make Dumbledore even sad. "Very well! I suggest you go and begin the ritual preparations immediately. And talk with each other." He winked at Harry, which Harry pretended not to see. It was easier that way.

Albus's advice to talk to the brat notwithstanding, Severus still went back to his bedroom and slammed most of a bottle of Firewhisky down his throat in the first gulp. But of course he paid for it, panting and half-screaming a few seconds later, fighting to keep himself from retching.

Rather the way that he was going to pay for underestimating the brat.

Not so much of a brat now, Severus had to admit grudgingly, and allowed himself to think of Potter's high cheekbones, the flaring green eyes, the way that he spoke straightforward words and thrust his hand forwards as if he wanted to shake Severus's. He would have to think about Potter like that soon.

All of him. And again Severus felt that strange stirring he'd felt once before, when Potter had declared that he was a virgin.

It's strange. I never thought it would have anything to do with me, and now that it does…I don't know what to feel.

Someone knocked on his office door. Severus picked up his wand, an old habit, although there were no ordinary students at Hogwarts now and no Death Eaters had managed to puncture Albus's spells yet.

"Do you have a minute to talk, sir? I think we should."

"Simply because your mentor said so?" Severus sneered. He kept the wand in his hand as he stalked over and flung open the door. "And you would never disagree with him or disappoint him, would you?"

"I think I've disappointed him a lot," Potter said, slipping in with a small shrug of his shoulders. "But what I really want to talk to you about is simpler." He turned and stared Severus in the eye. "Can you do this?"

"The matter is not my ability, Potter. It is my will."

"You can't do it if you won't. So that's what I'm asking. Are you up to this? Or should we try to find some other method?" Potter lifted his chin as if he really couldn't see what the problem was with what he was asking.

Severus shook his head and turned his back. "You have no idea what you're requiring of me," he whispered.

"No, and I won't, if you continue to not tell me."

"You're telling me that I have to essentially rape a child, and then be bound for the rest of my life to that child—"

"You don't," said Potter, so calmly that Severus wanted to strike him. "You can't rape the willing."

"You've never had sex before, you stupid boy!" Severus turned sharply on one heel. "You can't know what it's like."

"Say that I can't know what the sensations are like. That doesn't mean I haven't read up on sex and even sex between two men." Potter flushed when he saw the way Severus stared at him, but kept his steady stare up. "I was curious. I thought at the time I probably would die a virgin, so I wanted to see everything I could be missing."

Severus stared at his hands. "You don't even know if you're attracted to men."

"What does that matter?"

The sheer surprise in Potter's voice brought Severus's head snapping up. "Because this is for the rest of your life! To be bound to someone you find ugly—"

"It's for the rest of both our lives," Potter countered him. That stubbornness that belonged to neither of his parents, because neither of them would have been willing to do this, shone steadily in his eyes. "And it hardly matters in the same way marriage does, right? I mean, we don't have to spend every moment together. We don't need to love each other. What we need to do is work together. We can do that."

Severus sank slowly into the chair behind him, staring at Potter. "When did you become willing to do things like this? It can't all be the result of the war."

Potter gave him a flat, flinty smile. "I think you've never really understood me, sir. I was willing to die my first year. I was willing to go into the Chamber of Secrets alone my second year. I brought Cedric's body back in fourth year because I wanted to. And I've fought in these battles perfectly willing to die if I had to." He met Severus's eyes and shook his head at whatever he saw in them. "I think you thought of that as recklessness, but it wasn't, not really. It was being willing to do whatever I had to do."

"You will be giving up your dreams of a family." Severus didn't know for certain, but he thought that would matter to Potter, who had grown up without parents.

Potter massaged the back of his neck and shrugged a little. "I would have been giving up my life, or my sanity. I've already given up my reputation." Severus gave a short nod; he knew what the Daily Prophet, and consequently many other wizards, thought of Potter not having ended the war already. "I'm going to live, and hope that something comes along." He met Severus's eyes. "I think you would hardly care if I had sex with someone else, later."

"I would have to give you permission. That's what being in charge of the bond means."

"But you wouldn't mind, would you?"

Severus sat silent. He wasn't sure what infuriated him more: Potter's surety that he would give permission, or his willingness to jump into this.

"Severus?"

Potter saying his first name struck him like he was a bell and the name was the clapper. Severus cleared his throat and looked away from Potter. "I would do it. And if you will do this, you deserve to know exactly how bloody and stern this ritual is."

"Then tell me. What I don't know."

Severus eyed Potter as he sat down on the chair in front of him, and finally nodded. Potter's eyes were earnest. They could perhaps do this.

If things went wrong, then at least Potter would never be able to say that it was Severus's fault.

Harry swallowed as he watched the blood running from his left wrist onto the ritual site they had chosen, a small part of Hogwarts's grounds near the lake. It would be protected with spells so dense and strong that not even a werewolf could get past them. And its grass would be shaved and the stones would be removed.

Harry supposed that was the best he could hope for.

The ritual required not only that they bleed each day for a month onto the site they'd chosen, but that they bleed from a different part of the body. At least that could mean slightly different places on the arm and the like, instead of places that would cause damage.

Harry looked up and met Snape's eyes as he stood on the opposite side of the ritual circle—already laid out by a faint line of blue light, although not by any stronger magic as yet. Snape nodded to him and then glanced down at his own line of blood. In the end, they would cover the entire circle, half of the ring each. It was strange to Harry to think of their blood blending like that—stranger than to think of their bodies blending in sex.

He'd meant what he'd told Snape. He had always thought he would die a virgin, and sex was only one more thing to give up. If it meant he could stay alive, have his life, his friends, the possibility of love with someone else one day, that was hardly a big thing to surrender.

Snape still seemed to think it was, but Harry had become accustomed to ignoring Snape's opinion.

When they had finished the bleeding, Snape sealed his own cut with a wave of his wand. Harry did likewise and glanced up to the part of the sky where he knew the moon was hidden.

Maybe it was his imagination, but he thought he felt a swell of power leap from him to the moon, talking in his blood with lapping waves for a moment.

I promise that we are going to defeat Voldemort.

"My intention is to bond with Harry Potter in order to defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort."

Severus spoke the intention clearly at midnight, and then took a sip of the glass of pure water the ritual recommended. Strangely, it was harder to force himself into saying the Dark Lord's name than it had been to force himself to state the first part of the intention.

There were two Harry Potters in his head now, Severus thought as he put the empty cup down and stared into his fire. There was the brat with James Potter's face who had defied him so often that Severus had expected pushback on the matter of the ritual, too. And there was the young man who had come to speak to him and call him by his first name and had already bled in the ritual circle across from him.

The young man who was used to being a sacrifice.

Severus flexed his fingers and made a promise to himself that he barely understood, only that it was inspired by Potter's uncompromising words and the look in his eyes. He shall not find what I do to him such a sacrifice.

"What's this about you bonding with Professor Snape?"

Harry sighed and flopped down into the chair in front of the Gryffindor common room's fire. Ron and Hermione were leaning expectantly forwards from the chairs in front of him. They were almost the only ones there. Most of the other students had got withdrawn from the school when their families fled the country. But those who were Muggleborns or "blood traitors" were safer here than anywhere else. Dumbledore had even opened the school for some students of those families who had already left, and most of Ron's brothers were back.

There wasn't much pretense of a normal school year left, anyway. Snape still insisted on teaching his Potions classes, and Dumbledore did Defense and Transfiguration with a focus on practical spells, but that was about it. All the other professors were busy in the war effort or…gone.

(Harry still had to struggle not to vomit when he remembered his vision of Nagini devouring Professor Burbage).

"I was going to tell you as soon as Dumbledore said I could."

"Instead, we overheard you stating your intention." Hermione smoothed down her robes. "I know what kinds of rituals have those declarations, Harry. This is a Dark one, isn't it?"

Harry nodded.

"One that involves blood?"

Harry nodded.

"And one where the miserable git's going to be in charge, right?" Ron asked, with a horrible scowl.

"What? What do you mean in charge?" Hermione was sitting up, glancing back and forth between the two of them worriedly.

"It means he'll be on top, basically. And have to give me permission for things like whether I can take other lovers." Harry looked at Ron with a new level of respect. Rituals weren't something he read about for fun, unlike Hermione. "How did you know that?"

"What?" squeaked Hermione, who was blushing.

"Because that's what Dark rituals do," said Ron, broodingly. "My parents did tell me some history, you know, about things like why we're feuding with the Malfoys in the first place. They wanted our ancestors to undergo some Dark rituals, and didn't tell them the truth about them. It was only luck that Edwin Weasley found out in time and refused to go through with it." He looked at Harry. "And you have to be on the bottom because you're a virgin."

Now it was Harry's turn to blush, and Ron rolled his eyes. "Sort of hard not to notice that you've never sneaked off with anyone, mate."

Harry nodded and sighed. "I wanted it to be love, and so I didn't find anyone." He shrugged. "But at least that means I can do this ritual. And Snape isn't going to be difficult about giving me permission to find someone else."

"Why not?" Hermione asked. She seemed to have recovered, although she still wasn't looking directly at Harry. "I mean, why would—he seems to be possessive of what he considers his."

"Oh, I know," Harry muttered, thinking of the way that Snape gave all three of them a certain look when he locked his storage cupboards now. "But he still dislikes me. He won't want to spend any more time around me than he absolutely has to. This is a sacrifice for him just like it is for me. We'll do the ritual and then we'll cooperate in what needs to happen after it. It won't be loving sex."

"That kind of ritual usually means, um, sex once a month," Ron said, and it was his turn to flush and glance away.

"Again, a sacrifice," Harry said. "And anyone I find to love me after this would have to know the whole truth anyway. So I'll either find someone who can accept that, or I'll wait until I do."

"I hope you're right, mate." Ron shook his head a second later. "And I can't believe I have to say that I hope you're right about the way you'll have sex with Snape."

Harry laughed with them, and the mood was broken. Later that night, he lay awake in bed and did try to imagine a different future for himself, one where he was free to love exactly the way he wanted to.

But there was always the Horcrux in him. In the way.

Harry closed his eyes. He was committed now. Not even in a way that he wanted to turn aside from.

"My intention is to bond with Harry Potter in order to defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort."

"My intention is to bond with Severus Snape in order to defeat the Dark Lord Voldemort."

Their voices echoed side-by-side in the final statement of intentions, the one that had to be done together. Severus turned to study Potter, who quietly cupped a glass of pure water in his hands, listening to the echoes of their voices fade. They were once more outside at the ritual site, with the dark moon looming over them.

Severus hesitated once as he watched Potter raise the glass of water to his lips, but in the end, Potter had been accepting of so much else, Severus felt the compulsion to at least ask about this. "Wait a moment."

Potter turned to study him, eyebrows up. Severus ignored the immediate flaring of self-doubt and hatred he felt at that expression—it was a trick James Potter had pulled on him more than once—and cut his wrist with the same spell that he had used every time they bled on the circle.

"It makes the water stronger if we drink it with our blood mingled in it for the last step," he explained quietly, holding his wrist out over Potter's glass.

Potter watched as the drops of blood fell into it, but said only, "It didn't say anything about that in the ritual description."

"It is a common marker of blood rituals like this, but not required. The author of the book would not have thought it necessary to mention."

Potter only nodded, and waited until Severus had moved his wrist away and sealed the wound before he flicked his own wand. But he cut the side of his throat, not his wrist. Severus started, and wasn't in time to keep Potter from taking his own glass of water and sliding it under the dripping slice.

"Why?" Severus whispered. They had bled from the throat twice each over the ritual circle, but he hadn't expected Potter to do something like this.

"Because I know it's stronger when it comes from the throat," Potter replied, and sealed his own wound with a careless movement of his wand. "That's why vampires always want to drink there."

Severus grimaced. No need to ask how Potter knew that. The Dark Lord had recruited vampires to his side of the war six months ago, and they had all done their fair share of study in the ways to defeat them since then. "Very well," he said, and lifted his glass.

Potter swallowed his water-blood mixture without a grimace. Severus waited until he was done before taking his own first sip, so Potter could watch him.

He had expected to find it disgusting, but instead, there was a sharp tingle moving through him as he swallowed the blood, which was no thicker than tomato soup. Severus gasped. The magic of the ritual must have already begun to affect him, he realized dimly as he opened his eyes and turned his head to find Potter.

Potter was staring at him with slightly parted lips, his fingertips resting on the place on his throat where he had cut it to drain the blood. He only shook his head when Severus gazed at him. "I could feel that," he whispered. "Part of me being swallowed."

Severus blinked hard, and glanced away at once. He could do nothing as long as he lost control, he reminded himself again. Everything if he kept it. He nodded and moved away, towards Hogwarts. Potter walked quietly beside him. Severus knew he had not looked away, but Severus himself was content to keep staring at the castle.

Tomorrow, things would change.