There's a flame, flame in my heart
And there's no rain, can put it out

Images of his brother still left a coal of fear smouldering in his chest. Blue eyes, like their mother's, crinkled down at him in warped affection. Perhaps that was why Perditus allowed Eversor so much freedom; those eyes had been the last living vestige of her existence.

And there's a flame, it's burning in my heart
And there's no rain, oh, can put it out

The images in his brain refused to let him go. Severus whimpered softly as the phantom sensation of thin lips brushed over his and the often-forgotten tickle of hands ran from his ankles to the sharp jut of his hips. He screwed up his mouth. He wouldn't cry, he wouldn't break down over a dream. He'd never break down over a dream, he told himself as a sole saline drop ran warm and itching into his hair.

Suddenly, a hand slid beneath his arm and pressed against his chest. "Wake up, Sev. You're dreaming again." Warm lips touched his shoulder blade, and an equally warm and achingly familiar body cuddled close from behind. It drove back the fingertips gliding over his abdomen.

So just hold me, hold me, hold me

Harry always made the nightmares go away.

Take away the pain, inside my soul
And I'm afraid, so all alone

For a little while.

Severus knotted his fingers with those pressed against his breastbone and squeezed. They squeezed back. It eased some of the pain; it didn't ease the knowledge that saying what caused the pain could make Harry go away forever. A hard bead of guilt formed at the back of Severus' throat. He couldn't, and didn't, share the past that had gnawed away at his soul for more than three decades.

Fear still smouldered in his chest. He wasn't sure what scared him more, though: the sickening chain of events that made up his childhood and his life, or the barest though of losing that obnoxious brat. He pressed back into Harry's warmth. He wasn't quite so alone there.

Take away the pain, that's burning in my soul
'Cause I'm afraid that I'll be all alone

Perhaps if he stayed there until the world ended, it might excise his nightmares. Perhaps if he stayed there until the world ended, he'd never have to sacrifice his Harry.

So just hold me, hold me, hold me

The warm arms tightened around him, and Severus hugged them close. Their laced hands still rest just above his fluttering heart. One of Harry's powerful, protective legs slid over his and stayed there. There was the softest brush of lips against his ear. "Greasy bastard," Harry whispered.

Hold onto my heart, to my heart, to me
Hold onto my heart, to my heart, to me
Hold on, don't let me go 'cause all I am
You hold in your hands

The world felt very large and cold on nights like this when he awoke expecting to see Eversor loom over him, or Moody, or any of a thousand other vicious monsters. Harry - the last person he would have expected less than two months ago - made the two of them a world unto themselves. A small world. A warm world. A world that didn't blindly damn him for the scar on his arm, a testament to a fallen life and a fallen Lord.

With a mental start, Severus realised that everything he'd suffered had led up to this. Had Eversor not sent him up the tree, had Gran not died and unintentionally opened the way for the madman that claimed to be Severus' brother to suffer unto him the most unspeakable of acts, had he not run to Lucius and the Death Eaters and back to Albus and those monsters for the Greater Good called Aurors, he would be a different Severus Snape. He would be in a different place, in a different bed, and the arms around him wouldn't belong to Harry.

Eyes closed, he rolled onto his other side. The warm arms never left him. He lay his palms reverently against Harry's back and kissed him. It was slow, and soft, and in the press of lips and reverent brushes of his tongue Severus tried to infuse the meaning of words he could never say and never dared hope hear. He didn't deserve them. He couldn't even bring himself to tell Harry, in lieu of apology for seven years of inflicted Hell, why he was his particular breed of monster.

That didn't change how much Severus wanted to hear those words, though. And to know they were real. However, want and expectation were often very different things. He had to be content to simply be there.

Hold me
And I'll make it through the night
I'll be all right

He opened his eyes to find green ones looking at him with such purity and compassion that, for an instant, he allowed his callused soul to soften with hope. Harry smiled softly. "All right?"

Severus nodded. He dropped his eyes. "Don't leave me." A cold shudder went through his spine. He'd said those words before. They'd never come to anything good.

A small, broom-roughened hand pushed a lanky strand of black hair out of his face. "Never, you greasy bastard. Someone's got to keep you from waking up half the school in the middle of the night." The sweetest of kisses punctuated the promise.

Severus clutched tighter. "Obnoxious brat." He buried his face in Harry's shoulder; the warm arms locked around him, the warm body tried to meld with his. Some trace of the scant innocence he'd somehow sheltered from the immolation of life promised that, this time, he wouldn't be left to fend for himself.

He clamped onto the small promise while the cynical, logical part of him tried to scream that it was another lie. Harry's lips on his forehead choked the scream. Severus breathed the warm, earthy scent of his pupil, his whole world, and let himself slowly slide back into sleep. When they re-awoke in god knew how long and Severus was forced to pack Harry back to Gryffindor, he knew he would be alive. He would be able to face another day, and another, and another, until the students left and Harry - so he prayed to gods that didn't exist - didn't.

Hold on, hold onto my heart