"Well, well, well...how curious...how very curious..."

- Page 65, PS

Never After
Chapter Ten – Listening to Liaisons

"You really think you can still tell me what to do, Snape?" Harry questioned, his form relaxed, slumped almost, and head tilted back over his small shoulder, bright red eyes flashing. His face was flush from the recent feed, his mind clearer with the blood fog not gone but dulled. Pink, angular lips were quirked slightly in a smirk over pearly, venom soaked teeth, sharp as razors.

"You forget, Potter, that I am the one with the wand, here," the dark wizard replied, voice low.

"Mmm," Harry agreed lightly. "Yes, but only if you can catch me."

In a flash, he was gone. Just after the move, missing the teen's body by a mere few milliseconds, the sleek, ebony wand in Snape's hand flicked. The TV stand burst into shards before engulfing in flame. The eerie cackling laugh once again came unnaturally from Harry's mouth. Snape repressed the urge to shiver. Between the laugh, the bloody eyes, and the new beautiful, angular form he could be a twin for a young Voldemort and it almost terrified the Potion's Master. Almost, not quite, Snape thought bitterly. It was hard not to know every detail of the man who makes you call him Master.

The fury that Voldemort brought to Snape gave him enough edge to anticipate the new born vampire's next move. Another harsh whip of the ebony wand sent Harry spiraling against the far wall, crumpling the structure; Harry now lay frozen, scratchless, and covered in congealing blood. Snape let out a self-satisfied smirk, crouching down and resting the tip of his wand on Harry's forehead.

"Not quite so arrogant now, are you, Potter?"

The truth was Snape still had a grudge against the youngest, still living, Potter. He was struggling to comprehend the difference between the neglectful, empty house on Privet Drive to the defiant, callous creature in front of him. The contrast was startling, but if Snape knew one thing it was how quickly a person could change, how quickly the mind could snap in the face of death. Potter had faced it so many times, though, it was curious that he would react in this vicious way. And if Snape knew one thing, it was how to quell his curiosity.

He flicked his wrist.

"Why, Potter?" he asked, still kneeling over the prone figure.

"Why what, Snape?" Harry asked back having regained the use of his facial muscles.

"Why are you acting like this?" the dark wizard hissed. "For everything you've done in your life – throw it away now?"

"Life, ha! This is no life, you great ugly bastard," Harry growled before pursing his lips. "I worked so hard for everything, everyone else, and what happens? Fate turns into a cruel mistress and damns me to this. A monster not fit for anything but bloodthirsty lust," he lowered his eyes, expression downcast and hard with anger.

"Coward," Snape whispered lowly.

"What did you just call me?" Harry spat, furious.

"Coward," the Potion's Master repeated. "You are a coward, Harry Potter. You believe that you are the first for this to happen to? That you are the only one to hate what you've become? Many see themselves as monsters without ever having creature blood pass near their veins, let alone run through them." He paused to breathe deeply and sooth the righteous anger he felt. It was no small feat for the normally ill-tempered man. "It's a matter of perspective and I expect you to deal with it."

A long moment passed between the two, red and black eyes meeting with a new sort of fizz between them. Harry looked away first, screwing his eyes shut and knitting his brows. He tried to shake his head, but it was still immobile.

"I – I can't," he sighed, looking up once more. "It's like being under the Imperius only so much worse; I can't fight it, the burn, and a part of me doesn't want to try. If I had the chance, if I weren't frozen right now, I'm sure you'd be dead. Another to add to the deaths I've caused." He cut his eyes off to the side. "I pictured springing up, wrenching your neck to the side, and biting down hard. Three seconds and you'd be dead and I'd be gone, out to look for another."

Snape's heartbeat raced just a bit faster, belaying the stoicism his face portrayed. It was frightening how easily Potter had described feeding, how accurate and quick the dark wizard's death could be. Harry had a small, sad smirk on his face as he listened to the fluttering muscle. It slowed gradually and Snape took a breath to speak.

"There are ways," he began, "other than what you know. The Cullens, I've spoken to them briefly about how this," he gestured to Harry's new form, "came to be, they are not like the normal vampires wizards have encountered."

"Their eyes."

"Yes, the color of their iris' belays the difference between what they've deemed 'human-drinkers' and 'animal-drinkers.' I think the change has something to do with the molecular difference within the fauna blood itself."

"You mean that they don't -?"

"Yes, they are strictly 'vegetarian,'" Snape said, sneering slightly at the phrase. Harry's eyes widened fractionally, darting slightly at the implications.

"They said – but I thought they were lying," he muttered to himself. "I was there, and then gone, there was this smell; a beautiful freesia," his eyes half-closed as venom pooled in his mouth. "Bella, Bella, the girl's name was Bella," he repeated, cementing in his mind that she was human and it was bad to hurt her, made possible only by the fact that he was away from the scent, leaving it only in his memory. Snape's own smell was different than Bella's or even the Dursleys – and Harry had no inclination to indulge in the blood. "I wanted her, but they said she was Edward's… mate," he tested the word on his tongue.

"Yes, they said the same to me," Snape agreed. He looked around the living room that they were still in, by-passing the bodies without a noticeable change in demeanor. "We need to move and this has to be reported."

Harry was sure his heart would have skipped if it still beat.

"What will happen to me?" he asked, nervous; it was strange, though, his usual physical responses weren't there: no sweaty palms or shaky hands, only the faint thrumming of the emotion under his skin. Snape looked down at him for a moment, eyes calculating and losing the edge of hate they'd always had when directed at him. They weren't soft, kind, or warm by any means, but it was a vast improvement and Harry wasn't sure what Snape saw that changed his thoughts. I'm a monster, I deserve the hate and revulsion, he thought bitterly.

"I will need to get you out of here, far from humans. The Ministry of America knows that newborns without a Sire's direction tend to go off easily; you actually did quite well," Snape smirked. "Most kill at least six or seven, the first they come in contact with. You, on the other hand, searched out the one with the most tempting smell – and when you couldn't find her, he aimed for them," he spat, head gesturing to the mangled bodies of what used to be mother and son. Harry couldn't bring himself to care about their deaths; they had never been family to him, so he felt no mourning. Just the burning feeling in his stomach from taking a life – any life – ate at him. "It's interesting."

"What is?"

"The fact that you thought though who your victims would be," Snape commented. "Very interesting."