Part Ten - Behind The Mask

Harry gazed towards Severus, and smiled back. Severus was one of those people that was so hard on the outside, that if you didn’t know the man, you woud never believe it, beeing told that he usually brought breakfast to bed with him. To share with his lover. There had beem several occations when he had, before Harry had yet woken up, baked chokolate chip cookies, invited Ron and Hermione over, and surprised them all with his cooking-skills. He wasn’t well known for skills in anything but potion-making, and he had warningly told the three of them, that this was NOT a thing his students needed to know.
He was wearing a mask. This hard mask that had lead Harry to believe that there was no hope what so ever. None at all.

Harry had fallen in love with that mask. He had been scared that night when he first heard Severus laugh. First saw him smile. He had been so sure, that this was some mean way to punish him for beeing alive. And he knew Professor Snapes’ methods of punishing. He had been in detention too many times not to. And yet, he had preffered the hard mask. He had begun to care for it. Care for the well-beeing of the man. He had fallen for it. Slowly, and not at all gently, he had found himself in love with the man. And it had been so scary.
He had hid it for quite some time. Tried to make things work with Ginny, who he had only been able too fool for a short time, before she told him to quit the game. She had talked him out of the relationship, telling him that she would always remember it, hiding it in her heart. Harry had moved on. Sort of.
He had flirted with Wood on rare occations. He had tried a couple of things with him. On the night of his first real experience with a boy, he hadn’t been able to think about anything other than his professor. There had been too many nights like that afterwords. To many nights thinking of Severus, for his own pleasure.
In the end, he had figured that he was better of alone. Nobody deserved to be nothing but a substitute. He wasn’t able to play that game. And he hid. He made his own mask for some time. Working his way trough the days beside his co-professor, he tried not to think of it, and to grow out of it. He couldn’t. There was no way.

After a while Severus had seen trough him. He had known there was something wrong. After all, he was working side-by-side him every day. Either teaching him, og watching him teach, and he knew. Knew there was someone. But never who that someone was. Allthough there was allways a possibility that the special someone was that Weasly-boy. (What is it about those red-heads!!?)

Harry had been right. Severus wasn’t at all prepared for what he had been told that night. He was sure it was going to be Ron. He was sure he was going to force himself to listen trough hours of sobbing over the best friend. And how friendship was more important than findig out if there was any possible way….and blah, blah… but instead, Harry had drawn a big breath and simply started by saying ”I love you”.
Severus had faired the worst. He had settled with the thought of living on his own for the rest of his lonesome life. He had laughed at Harry when he fell in trough the door, only to make sure to Harry there was nothing to be scared of. To make Harry relaxe. And he had been so wrong. There had been much to be scared of.

He didn’t know how to love. Well was he in love. But to love. To share. To depend. To be depended on. He didn’t know how to even be a friend. He didn’t even know how to smile properly. He had been hiding for so many years. Ever scince he and Lily had been forced apart as kids, beeing ”no good for eachother”, ha had closed himself up. Refused to open. Even though Albus had been a friend to him, he didn’t do friends. He had closed that part of his life. If the old headmaster hadn’t been able to read his mind, he would never have known the truth.